Preamble

The House met at half-past Eleven o'clock

PRAYERS

[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT

The Secretary of State was asked—

Education SSA (Cheshire)

Mrs. Ann Winterton: What recent representations he has received on the education standard spending assessment for Cheshire. [75574]

The Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. David Blunkett): I have received a number of representations from Cheshire welcoming the £13.8 million increase in standard spending assessment and the fact that, this year, the revenue support grant matches that increase. That was never true of such allocations under the previous Government.

Mrs. Winterton: Although I welcome any increase in real terms in education expenditure in Cheshire, does the Secretary of State accept that the present flawed methodology disadvantages shire counties such as Cheshire—compared with London and the south-east—in respect of area cost adjustment and pupil weighting? Will he introduce a reform of that methodology rather than leaving it to fossilise for a further three years?

Mr. Blunkett: I can promise that my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions will not leave the methodology to fossilise for 18 years, and that will make a difference. The area cost adjustment and the additional educational needs element are serious issues and we accept that there is a requirement to get them right. The problem was that the Local Government Association and others could not come up with an agreed programme of change in time. I would very much welcome the hon. Lady's contribution in that matter.
Our allocation of money under the standards fund—from which Cheshire has already received £8 million—and of direct funding for class size reductions and nursery expansion is being undertaken fairly, and that funding is in addition to the standard spending assessment announcements.

School Building Programme

Dr. George Turner: If he will make a statement on measures to tackle the backlog in the school building programme. [75575]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. Charles Clarke): The Government have made significant extra resources available to help local authorities and school governing bodies tackle the backlog in the school building programme. In July 1997, we introduced the £1.085 billion new deal for schools. The comprehensive spending review has provided an additional £1.5 billion for schools capital, and a further £660 million to support private finance initiative projects. In total, we estimate that some £5.4 billion will be available for investment in school buildings over the next three years. In respect of this year's new deal for schools round, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State hopes to be able to announce the outcomes before Easter.

Dr. Turner: I thank my hon. Friend for that response. Having seen the backlog build up in Norfolk over 20 years, I appreciate the Government's making that matter a priority. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important that, as we enter the next millennium, our teachers should feel that their workplaces are suitable for it? The bids received by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will include many categories, but does my hon. Friend agree that we have been making do with mobile classrooms in Norfolk for far too long? He will be aware that, at Smithdon county high school in Hunstanton, far too many teachers have had mobile classrooms as their workplace for far too long. Will he ensure that careful consideration—and, it is to be hoped, a positive answer—are given to the part of the £32 million bid for the county of Norfolk that relates to that problem?

Mr. Clarke: My right hon. Friend will have heard my hon. Friend's reference to the school in Hunstanton. I acknowledge that standards are driven up by good-quality provision of school building and that teachers need to be able to teach in good, healthy working environments. We inherited a substantial backlog from the previous Government and we are now investing at a much higher level than they ever did; by the end of this Parliament, we shall be investing twice as much every year as they invested in any year during which they were in power.

Mr. Roy Beggs: The additional money for education is appreciated throughout the United Kingdom. Does the Minister agree that many public bodies, including education authorities, own a great deal of property and assets which are underused and could be sold to raise funds? Will he encourage the raising of money to be reinvested in new building and to upgrade the school estate?

Mr. Clarke: I agree with the hon. Gentleman; that is why we are encouraging local education authorities to develop asset management plans in which they consider all the schools in their area and make a planned assessment of the maintenance, replacement and new investment that is needed for each school. Those plans


will set out locally agreed priorities for capital expenditure and the approach proposed for tackling them. For that reason, we are holding consultations on the overall capital strategy and have provided a small amount to help local education authorities to develop those plans. We believe that that will lead to rational decisions on resources and better value for money for the teachers and pupils in the constituencies that we all represent.

Literacy Hour

Fiona Mactaggart: What is his assessment of the effectiveness of the literacy hour in primary schools; and if he will make a statement. [75576]

The Minister for School Standards (Ms Estelle Morris): Almost all schools are now teaching the daily literacy hour, which is having a positive impact on teaching methods and organisation of lessons. The literacy hour has already raised standards in schools that took part in the pilot national literacy project. Evaluations of the project, published in December by Ofsted and the National Foundation for Educational Research, show that, in less than two years, children who started some way below the national average in their reading scores made progress of between eight months and a year above what would normally be expected.

Fiona Mactaggart: I thank the Minister for that reply. Is she aware of the Scottish Office-funded research into synthetic phonics? That research showed not only that children taught by that method were nine months ahead in their reading ability but that less than 10 per cent. had reading ages more than 12 months behind their chronological age, as compared with nearly a third of children taught by the analytical phonics method? Does the Minister agree that, in this era of national targets and nationally agreed teaching strategies, the Government have a duty to ensure that classroom teachers are aware of the most recent research so that they can improve and develop their teaching methods and achieve the demanding targets for success in reading at key stage 2?

Ms Morris: I think perhaps we should not pick arguments with our Scottish colleagues when no arguments exist. My hon. Friend's comments show that the Government have succeeded in getting phonics accepted as a good way of teaching children to read. That is the focus of her question. We shall always reflect on the evidence about which phonics are best. However, synthetic and other phonics are included in the national literacy strategy that is taught to children in England.
I believe that the research conducted in Scotland involved between eight and 12 schools, whereas the national literacy strategy is based on good-quality evidence gathered from the national literacy project. As always, we shall base our policies on good evidence to ensure that children are taught to read and write in the most effective manner. That is our standard.

Dr. Julian Lewis: Does the Minister agree that the best step that could be taken to improve literacy in primary schools would be to publish the results of the tests that children take at seven as well as the average amount of money that is spent on each child and the average class size in each school? We could

then see whether there is a correlation between money spent, class sizes and performance or whether the correlation is between performance and the persistent use of out-dated self-discovery teaching methods in too many schools.

Ms Morris: One wonders why the Conservative party did not do any of those things when it was in power.

Dr. Lewis: I wasn't here.

Ms Morris: The hon. Gentleman will not be here much longer if he tries to wriggle out of any responsibility for the previous Government's actions.
There is nothing more important than ensuring that youngsters between five and seven learn to read and write as effectively as possible. If they do not learn those basic skills by that age, they will not be able to access the rest of the curriculum and they will become disaffected and disillusioned. The Government have already taken action not only on the literacy strategy but on class sizes. We have also ensured that information is available to parents. We have acted speedily to ensure that the information that is available to the public and to the wider community is more meaningful in terms of value added and can be measured from baseline assessments.
There is already evidence that small class sizes in the important first year make a real difference. The Government are definitely taking credit for the fact that all the essential elements are in place. We will ensure that today's youngsters aged five to seven get a chance that their predecessors did not enjoy under the previous Government.

Mr. Malcolm Wicks: I have attended four or five literacy hours, and already my spelling is showing some improvement—although there is no room for complacency. More important, I have found that children enjoy literacy hours, which are becoming a popular feature of primary school life. Does the Minister have any observations to make at this stage about the applicability of the literacy hour—particularly the reading of the text at the beginning—to the most able children, who may want to turn to the next page or even the next book, and to those who are struggling with literacy and who may need more intensive support on a one-to-one basis?

Ms Morris: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for those comments. My experience of visiting primary schools in September was that children welcomed the literacy hour. Children like the sense of order, the pattern and the pace, and they know that they are improving. I take seriously my hon. Friend's points about our most able children and those who learn less quickly. He will be pleased to hear that the evidence demonstrates that all children, whether the most able or those with special needs, make progress under the national literacy strategy. That is good news for all children.
We shall reflect on further advice to make sure both that the hour is used to the best effect for more able children and that those with special educational needs are properly supported. The Government will base our proposals on evidence of what works and will return to the matter in the near future.

Mr. David Willetts: The Minister will know that that is not the evidence of the recent survey by the


Association of Teachers and Lecturers, which revealed that 80 per cent. of teachers questioned believed that the literacy hour was not helping pupils with special educational needs and that 60 per cent. thought that it was not helping especially gifted children. Do not the questions of the hon. Members for Croydon, North (Mr. Wicks) and for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) provide two examples of the rigidity and inflexibility of the hour, which does not properly take account of synthetic phonics teaching methods or the needs of gifted children and those with special educational needs?

Ms Morris: The hon. Gentleman must decide when he would prefer to believe. If he wants to believe the evidence of the ATL and teacher unions, let him do so, but I would sooner believe the evidence of Ofsted, NFER and independent research, which demonstrates that the literacy strategy works for all children. That is the bottom line. The policy is not about what teachers think; it is about which strategy the evidence demonstrates works with pupils. Pupils' reading standards are crucial.

Primary Schools (New Classrooms)

Helen Jackson (Sheffield, Hillsborough): How many primary schools will be acquiring new classrooms in the current academic year. [75578]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. Charles Clarke): That information is not collected centrally, but we expect that the key stage l class size initiative will fund additional classrooms at 600 schools in the current financial year and at a further 909 schools in 1999–2000. Funding continues to be available to meet agreed local priorities for school premises including new classrooms through the annual capital guidelines, the new deal for schools and local education authorities' own funds.

Helen Jackson: I thank the Minister for that answer. He will know about, and not be surprised by, the huge welcome in Sheffield for the Government's funding for the reduction in class sizes to 30 in primary schools, which is beginning to be put into practice. He will also be aware that the money is scheduled to fund 45 extra teachers—which is most welcome—and three capital allocations for extra classrooms, one of which, at Marlcliffe, has been particularly welcomed in my constituency. However, consultations with primary school head teachers in my constituency have revealed that many want to reduce class sizes to 30, but will experience huge difficulties because of the shortage of rooms to accommodate children. The class size pledge has a knock-on effect on classrooms, not only on the staff who teach the classes.

Mr. Clarke: I thank my hon. Friend for her remarks. I know what a welcome our programme has received in Sheffield and elsewhere in the country. I am particularly aware, as any Minister in my Department must be, of the vital contributions being made in Sheffield. I want to highlight the number of extra teachers who have been employed as a result of the initiative to reduce class sizes. On top of the extra 1,500 teachers in 1998–99, there will be an extra 2,500 teachers from next September to help to reduce class sizes. That is a long-term programme.

I hope that my answer addresses the points that my hon. Friend made about the need to keep striving to reduce class sizes and raise educational standards.

Mr. Don Foster: Does the Minister recall that before the last general election, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), now the Secretary of State, was told that the cost of meeting the class size pledge would be £60 million? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the budget now stands at £627 million and rising, which is 10 times more than the original estimated cost?
Following the question of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Helen Jackson), is the hon. Gentleman further aware that local authorities, not only in Sheffield, but throughout the land, now estimate that for the next two years, they need not 1,500, but 2,300 additional teachers and classrooms, at a cost of £159 million more than the Government are allocating? Does that not demonstrate that the Government have got their sums wrong yet again?

Mr. Clarke: The hon. Gentleman must have misheard what I said. I said that we have spent enough money on the initiative to employ an extra 1,500 teachers in 1998–99 and an additional 2,500 in 1999–2000 from September, which more than meets his point. We have allocated resources; we have fulfilled our pledges. I should be a little disturbed if the Liberal Democrats joined the Conservatives in taking the view that class size had no impact on educational performance.

Mr. Jonathan Shaw: One of the schools in my constituency that will be receiving a new nursery classroom is Ridge Meadow county primary. The building of the new classroom has been delayed because the school is in special measures. However, I am delighted to say that the hard work of Sue Robertson, the governors and all the teachers has meant that the school is now out of special measures. Will my hon. Friend assure me that, as soon as the inspectors' report hits his desk, he will quickly give Medway education authority and the school the green light to build the new classroom, to celebrate everyone's hard work in raising standards and the fact that the school has come out of special measures?

Mr. Clarke: I join my hon. Friend in congratulating everybody associated with the school—the head teacher and the governors—on driving forward to take the school out of special measures. I am glad to say that that is characteristic of a number of schools which have found themselves in special measures. I can give my hon. Friend the assurance that he requests. I shall consider very carefully the specific proposals for new capital spending at the school, and recognise its achievement in reaching this point.

Mrs. Theresa May: In addition to the provision of classrooms to reduce class sizes in primary schools, how many extra primary school classrooms have been brought into use to accommodate four-year-olds as a result of the Government's policy on early-years education? Will the Minister take this opportunity to accept the figures of the Pre-School Learning Alliance, which show that 1,500 pre-schools have already closed as a result of Government policy, and that more will close


because primary schools are being encouraged to take four-year-olds and because extra costs are being imposed on pre-schools owing to the Government's policies on the minimum wage, holiday pay and national insurance?

Mr. Clarke: As a matter of fact, I do not accept the figures of the Pre-School Learning Alliance. In fact, I discussed them in great detail at an event that the alliance organised just a couple of weeks ago. The figures that the hon. Lady has cited are not reliable. I recall that, in my county of Norfolk, the voucher scheme which her Government introduced created exactly the drama and worry about which she is concerned. We are looking—and continue to look—at demand for class size at all ages. We shall continue to review the matter and make statements as appropriate.

Further Education Colleges

Mr. Phil Hope: What support he is providing to further education colleges to raise standards. [75580]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. George Mudie): We are determined to ensure that standards are raised in further education colleges. To sustain that, we established a standards fund of £35 million this year and £80 million next year.

Mr. Hope: I thank my hon. Friend for his reply. Young people and mature students alike in my constituency are very much looking forward to the planned growth in further education. The Tresham institute, which serves many people in Corby, wants to play its part in raising skills and standards. It is concerned, however, about the pressure on it. As my wife, a senior lecturer at the institute, tells me every Friday when I go home, the institute has made 30 per cent. efficiency improvements in the delivery of further education. Will quality be maintained during such growth, and will the pressure on staff to deliver be too great? Will my hon. Friend assure me that growth will not be at the expense of quality and that the contribution that staff make to delivering that increase in standards will be recognised?

Mr. Mudie: As one who is married to a head teacher, and given that the banning of the subject of education in the household adds to domestic bliss, I sympathise with my hon. Friend. We are very determined on standards. We shall unashamedly maintain pressure on further education colleges. We are intent on widening participation. We have a national target of an additional 700,000 students in higher and further education by 2002. We do not accept that the introduction of more people will lead to a drop in standards.
When I met some college principals yesterday, I refused to accept that standards are affected by widening participation. We do understand that many people will come in with needs and problems, and that those must be accommodated, but the funds that we have put in to facilitate access and the money that we have put into the support fund will help further education colleges in that task.

New Deal (West Sussex)

Mr. Tim Loughton: How much has been spent on the new deal in West Sussex to date. [75581]

The Minister for Employment, Welfare to Work and Equal Opportunities (Mr. Andrew Smith): To the end of January £206,538 had been brought to account in the West Sussex coastal plain unit of delivery on the new deals for young people and those over 25.

Mr. Loughton: I am grateful for that answer, but is the Minister aware that Employment Service figures show that, in the West Sussex coastal plain unit of delivery, only 68 new-dealers have secured unsubsidised employment? I am sure that the Minister's maths are better than mine, but does he think that that represents good value for money?
Given the announcement yesterday that my local electricity company has created 500 new real jobs in my constituency alone, will he admit that the windfall tax raid to create jobs might have been better deployed if the money had been left with the utility companies?

Mr. Smith: Not at all, not least because those 68 people who have got the unsubsidised jobs might well not have done so without the new deal programme and the windfall levy. What the hon. Gentleman does not mention—I am surprised that he does not pay tribute to the achievement of his constituents in this respect—are the other 51 people who have got subsidised jobs through the new deal for young people. Is the hon. Gentleman not including them in his figures? They are in employment; they are in work, earning money. They would have been on the dole under the Government whom he supported.

New Deal (Young People)

Mr. Lawrie Quinn: How many young people in (a) Scarborough and Whitby, (b) North Yorkshire and (c)the United Kingdom have obtained employment through the new deal to date. [75582]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Ms Margaret Hodge): New deal has made an encouraging start and in the North Yorkshire unit of delivery, which covers Scarborough and Whitby, 385 young people have found employment. In Great Britain, 58,500 have found employment.

Mr. Quinn: My constituents and everyone in the country will be pleased to know that 385 people in the North Yorkshire delivery unit have found work. However, may I gently ask the Department whether, in an area such as my constituency, where there is a discrete travel-to-work area and where unemployment is more than 40 per cent. higher than the national average, it would be possible to focus on the actual area where there is most concern? A needs-driven agenda would enable us to do more work not only to give more help to the youngsters who have benefited from the new deal but to extend that to people over 55 who could benefit from it. We welcome the progress that will be made for those


people. Many people in my constituency are looking to the Government to deliver in this area. I believe that we can, and I should like to have the statistics to prove it.

Ms Hodge: I congratulate my hon. Friend on the work that he is doing on behalf of his constituents and I know of the work that he is doing with my colleagues on linking educational standards with employment opportunities. He is right to point out that there are concentrations of unemployment in large units. I know that unemployment is 6.6 per cent. in Scarborough and Whitby, whereas it is 3.3 per cent. in the whole North Yorkshire unit of delivery. Obviously, the programme is designed to meet the needs of people who find themselves unemployed, and the purpose of the new deals, for the young unemployed, the long-term unemployed and—when it comes into being—for those over 50 is to focus on areas of greatest need.

Mr. Owen Paterson: How much taxpayers' money has been spent on each of the young people who have obtained a full-time job through the new deal?

Ms Hodge: The hon. Gentleman will know that it is far too early to make a rigorous assessment of the cost per job, but he will know that, for the first time, the Government are making a completely transparent and thorough assessment of our investment into all the new deals. We believe at this point that the figure per job is about £1,000.

Ms Candy Atherton: Will my hon. Friend send a message of congratulation to the Employment Service in Cornwall? Does she agree that it has been particularly successful and innovative as a pathfinder of the new deal?

Ms Hodge: I congratulate my hon. Friend and the people working in her local employment office on the excellent work that they have done. It is our view that they have been one of the most successful employment offices in finding jobs for unemployed people in that area. It is interesting to note that 18 per cent. more young people are moving off benefit in the pathfinder areas than in the non-pathfinder areas. That is further evidence, for those who still require it, that our new deal for young people is working.

Mr. Damian Green: The Minister's complacency about the new deal flies in the face of the evidence. Will she confirm that yesterday's unemployment figures reveal that, since the national introduction of the new deal for young people, unemployment among young people has risen by 22,000, and has risen every quarter? Does she not recognise the plain truth that, in its first year of operation, the new deal is proving an expensive failure?

Ms Hodge: It is typical of the Opposition—who never did anything to tackle unemployment—to criticise a programme that is demonstrating great success, even in its early days. Unemployment among young people has dropped by 50 per cent. since May 1997. That demonstrates the success of our programme.

Individual Learning Accounts

Mr. Michael Jabez Foster: What role individual learning accounts will play in the university for industry. [75583]

The Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. David Blunkett): Many account holders will want to access the advice, guidance and tailored material that the university for industry will provide, precisely because it targets individual companies and the needs of individuals. Today we have launched the development plan for the university for industry. We have announced the board membership, including the chairman, Lord Dearing, and the vice-chairman, Tony Greener, who is chairman of Diaegio plc.

Mr. Foster: Given the welcome tax incentives for individual learning accounts that were announced in the Budget, what message would my right hon. Friend send to businesses in my constituency and elsewhere to encourage them to contribute to individual learning accounts for their employees?

Mr. Blunkett: The message was a strong one: if businesses are prepared to invest in individual learning accounts, neither they nor the recipient will have to pay tax or have it counted for tax purposes against them. There will therefore be a substantial incentive for the individual—and encouragement for trade unions, through their bargaining-for-skills programme and similar initiatives, to make the development of negotiations over skills and the investment in the skills needs of the future a crucial part not merely of modernising our economy, but of their contribution to ensuring the well-being and security of the work force in the years ahead.

Mr. Phil Willis: We were delighted when the Government accepted the Liberal Democrat proposals for individual learning accounts. We are pleased that they have also rolled out the issue of tax relief for students and their families, and also from employers. Will the Secretary of State tell us, first, whether there will be limits on those contributions; secondly, when individual learning accounts will be available to all students; and thirdly, whether that will mean that, in the payment of tuition fees, money put in by individuals or employers will attract up to 40 per cent. tax relief?

Mr. Dennis Skinner: If it's your policy, what are you worried about?

Mr. Blunkett: My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) puts it succinctly. If it is the Liberal Democrats' policy, I should be asking the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) the question.
I announced the policy of individual learning accounts three years ago. We have been working with local partners and with training and enterprise councils to ensure that, when the accounts are launched, they are a great success. The first million will be available by next year, funded by £150 million of public money. There is a £500 cap. The standard rate of income tax is applied. As we shall see when the Moser report is published, this is a policy for


investing in the basic skills needs of the vast majority of people who have few—or, in many cases, no—qualifications and skills.
This is not a policy, unlike the previous vocational tax relief, to encourage people to follow, at public expense, leisure courses such as the piloting of aircraft and deep sea diving.

Mrs. Anne Campbell: I warmly welcome the recent announcement about individual learning accounts and the way in which they will encourage individuals to take responsibility for their own learning. Will they be available to right hon. and hon. Members and their assistants, and, if so, would my right hon. Friend encourage us to take advantage of them?

Mr. Blunkett: I have been hoist by my own petard. Yes, I would encourage all hon. Members to take advantage of them, and I would encourage people to ensure that those who do not have basic skills can take up the scheme in a new and imaginative way. I had better stress once again that individual learning accounts will not be available for diving courses here or anywhere else in the world.

New Deal

Mr. Chris Mullin: What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the new deal programme; and if he will make a statement. [755841

The Minister for Employment, Welfare to Work and Equal Opportunities (Mr. Andrew Smith): The new deal has made an encouraging start. More than 230,000 young people have started on the programme and more than 50,000 have already found jobs. A comprehensive programme of evaluation is under way, much of it being undertaken independently of Government. Four reports have already been published, more are on the way, and we shall release detailed information in May on how each area is doing against core performance indicators.

Mr. Mullin: Has my right hon. Friend noticed that we have succeeded in attracting only about seven Tory Back Benchers to our deliberations this morning, and does he think that there is scope for a new deal programme to reintegrate some Tories back into the world of work?
Does my right hon. Friend see any scope for allowing new deal steering groups greater flexibility to adapt their programmes to local conditions—for example, by awarding recognition to in-house training that does not necessarily produce a national vocational qualification but that may be every bit as relevant to job prospects?

Mr. Smith: I know the close personal interest that my hon. Friend takes in the new deal in his constituency, and that is greatly appreciated by all those responsible for the programme locally. As to the challenge of what the new deal could do for the Conservative party, I have always been careful about the claims that I make for the new deal and even I would not suggest that the new deal would be capable of bringing indolent Conservatives into the Chamber, even at this late hour in the morning.
The programme is giving young unemployed people in my hon. Friend's constituency and elsewhere the chance—for many of them for the first time in their lives—to obtain rewarding work. I agree that we must develop the flexibility to ensure that the gateway and other training support can equip people to fill the vacancies that are available. The increase to £5 million for the innovation fund for the new deal in the Budget will enable us to carry forward precisely the sort of initiative for which my hon. Friend argues on behalf of his local partnership and others.

Mr. David Willetts: I do not recall seeing the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) in the House last week in the Budget debate on education and employment, or the week before that, and what about the week before when we debated education in schools, when more Conservative Members were present than Labour Members?
The Minister talks complacently about the new deal, but is he aware of what Personnel Today has called a crisis of confidence in the new deal among employers? Can he confirm that Allied Carpets is pulling out of the scheme and that Dixons, Bass and Marks and Spencer are finding it difficult to meet their recruitment needs through the new deal? Is it not a fact that no extra young people are finding jobs through the new deal compared with what would have happened anyway?

Mr. Smith: No to all of it. First, the hon. Gentleman should use one of his brains at least to apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin), who was in the Chamber on the occasions to which he referred. Secondly, Lucy has had to be left outside the Chamber today, in case the hon. Gentleman's intemperate remarks should provoke her as they so evidently did during the education debate. Finally, it is not true that those companies have pulled out of the new deal. For example, Marks and Spencer has reported to me positive experience of the people that it has recruited and the progress that it is making on the programme. He is wrong, wrong, wrong.

New Classrooms

Charlotte Atkins: If he will estimate the number of new classrooms to be provided by September 1999.[75587]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. Charles Clarke): I refer my hon. Friend to my earlier answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Helen Jackson). We estimate that the key stage 1 class size initiative will fund an additional 600 classrooms in the current financial year and a further 900 in 1999–2000.

Charlotte Atkins: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. In Staffordshire, in January 1998, nearly 8,300 pupils were in classes of over 30; by September 1999, that figure is likely to be under 500. Does he recognise the particular problems of rural schools operating with mixed-age classes in buildings of limited size?

Mr. Clarke: I thank my hon. Friend for her question. The kind of change that she has seen in Staffordshire is


happening throughout the country, to the great benefit of educational standards. We are extremely conscious of the importance of the local school to rural communities, such as those in her constituency. Our policy is designed to raise standards in all schools, wherever they are situated. We have made it clear that no child should have to travel an unreasonable distance to school because of the class size limit and we are prepared to consider providing extra funding for an extra teacher when no alternative school is available within a reasonable distance.

Mr. Nick St. Aubyn: Whatever importance is attached to lowering class sizes to below 30, surely it is even more important to reduce the number of children in classes of over 40. Will the Minister confirm the figures from his own Department stating that, in the first year of this Government, the number of children in classes of over 40 doubled? Why has that happened and when will he manage to get the number of children in classes of over 40 in primary schools back to the level that he inherited from the previous Government?

Mr. Clarke: I can confirm that our plans will reduce the number of children in infant classes of over 30 from 485,000 in January 1998 to under 200,000 in September 1999—a drop of over 285,000. By September 2000, we expect fewer than 50,000 children to be in large infant classes. I am not aware of the particular school to which the hon. Gentleman referred, but its budget for the first year of this Government was inherited from the previous Administration. Thanks to this Government, substantial extra resources are going into schools to address precisely the issue about which he is concerned, and all the other issues of educational standards.

Ms Joan Walley: May I give credit where credit is due and say how pleased I am that we have such a huge programme for new classrooms and school building programmes, particularly in Staffordshire and in Stoke-on-Trent? I thank my hon. Friend for the £2.5 million under the new deal, which will fund 10 new classrooms at Holden Lane high school in my constituency, where work commences tomorrow.
My hon. Friend's policy is one of innovation and vision—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!]—because building new classrooms will enable us to implement our policy of lifelong learning and ties in with primary schools. Will he look at the accumulated backlog in respect of new classrooms in Staffordshire and in Stoke-on-Trent, which has resulted from 18 years of no improvements under the previous Government?

Mr. Clarke: I thank my hon. Friend for her question. Such improvements are being made throughout the country. I certainly give her an assurance that I will look into the backlog to which she referred, but she was justified in using the words "innovation" and "vision". The fact is that we had 18 years of stagnation, but more resources are now going into building. Teachers' governing bodies are being creative about how those resources can be used to drive up educational standards. I travel around the country a great deal and it is truly inspirational to see what many people are doing with the resources that we have been able to let them have.

Employment Zones

Mr. Syd Rapson: What plans he has to help unemployed people aged 25 years and over in employment zones to find employment.[75588]

The Minister for Employment, Welfare to Work and Equal Opportunities (Mr. Andrew Smith): We aim to have 15 employment zones throughout Britain up and running from April next year, with some 48,000 long-term unemployed people eligible for help. A key innovation in the zones will be personal job accounts, which will, for the first time, bring together funding from benefits, training and employment service programmes.

Mr. Rapson: I thank the Minister for that answer. Could he explain to an old-fashioned sceptic such as me how the new personal job accounts will provide the flexible help needed by the unemployed?

Mr. Smith: The rules of past initiatives have been rigid and have required that money can be used only for a particular purpose, whereas, under this scheme, the personal adviser, working in conjunction with the long-term unemployed client, will be able to plan a programme of training, work experience, enterprise and self-employment. If people want to be self-employed, the personal adviser will help them to move forward. Pooling funds that have previously be available only in a fragmented way will make a much more coherent and effective programme.

Mr. Nick Hawkins: Does the Minister recognise that, contrary to his boast about the Government's policies, especially the new deal, instead of tourism and leisure businesses recruiting many more young people, at a recent trade function for one of the main trade bodies for tourism and leisure, it was revealed that not one business has taken on anyone under the new deal? Does that not show the complete bankruptcy of the Government's policies and the accuracy of what my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) said a few moments ago?

Mr. Smith: No, it does not. It is more nonsense from a party that did next to nothing to help the long-term and young unemployed, and now cannot come to grips with the fact that the new deal has, according to independent evaluation, made an encouraging start. Tourism, leisure and catering are among those industries recruiting the most people from the new deal. From memory, I think that over a fifth of new deal recruits who are getting jobs are going into that sector.
The hon. Gentleman should examine the hard evidence. He should compare the performance of the young, unemployed people who went through the new deal programme when the pathfinder areas were up and running with the performance when the new deal was not up and running in the rest of the country. That comparison has been made, and it shows that youth unemployment fell by 18 more percentage points in areas where the new deal was operating. That is proof that this programme is working and helping young people forward. Conservative Members should, as some of them have, get behind the new deal and help to make it a success, instead of carping and trying to make it a failure.

Personal Adviser Service

Kali Mountford: What is the role of the personal adviser service in respect of disabled people seeking work and training.[75589]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Ms Margaret Hodge): Under the new deal for disabled people, the personal adviser service offers those who are claiming incapacity benefits a client-focused service based on the needs of the individual disabled person. It gives those people access to an extensive range of specialist disability programmes. Personal advisers carry out initial assessments of a client's employability, arrange any specialist assessments that are needed, give advice on benefits and training issues, draw up employment-focused action plans and work with clients to carry them out.

Kali Mountford: I am delighted with the response from my hon. Friend the Minister, which will meet many of the concerns that have been expressed by people with disabilities who have attended my surgeries. They are fearful that they will be forced into employment that is unsuitable for them, and that training opportunities will not recognise their needs. Personal advisers may not understand their problems of access to employment. Can they have an assurance that personal advisers will be thoroughly trained so that they know the local marketplace and how disabled people can get access to it? Disabled people need to be supported throughout their lives so as to ensure that they have a full opportunity to be citizens and not just people in receipt of benefits.

Ms Hodge: Training for personal advisers is absolutely crucial, and is professional and individually tailored to ensure that they have the skills that are necessary to help this special group under the new deal. I endorse what my hon. Friend said. We know that, of the 2.6 million people who are on incapacity benefit, 1 million would like to work. It behoves us to try to break down the barriers to employment that far too many disabled people have faced for far too long.

Adult Literacy

Mr. Vernon Coaker: What estimate he has made of the numbers of adults with literacy problems; and what support is being given to them.[75590]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. George Mudie): Just over one in five adults—some 8 million adults of working age—have poor literacy skills, according to the 1997 "Adult Literacy in Britain" survey. A wide range of Government programmes offer basic skills provision for adults. By 2002, up to 500,000 learners a year will benefit.

Mr. Coaker: Many hon. Members will be staggered by the information that 8 million adults have basic literacy problems. A number of those people will be the excluded, prisoners, and others with difficulties of all kinds. May I urge my hon. Friend to give as much prominence as possible to the recommendations in the Moser report,

and to the individual learning accounts that are to be introduced? The present position is clearly unsatisfactory, and cannot be allowed to continue.

Mr. Mudie: I think that the whole House will appreciate my hon. Friend's concern.

Mr. Eric Forth: No.

Mr. Mudie: That probably puts the right hon. Gentleman in a minority of one.
Those 8 million people will be unemployed, on benefits or in low-paid jobs, and the figures demonstrate that they receive less training than others. My hon. Friend is right: we are awaiting the Moser report, whose publication is imminent, and we shall be prepared to work with it. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State pointed out we ascribe great importance to individual learning accounts, which can act as a catalyst for ordinary people who would not necessarily have considered going back to learning otherwise. They can pick up that £150, and embark on the road leading back to learning and to employment.

Early-years Education

Dr. Phyllis Starkey: If he will make a statement on the Government's policy on the provision of (a) playgroups and (b) nursery classes for early-years education.[75591]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Ms Margaret Hodge): Early-years services are planned in each local authority, so that the maintained, private and voluntary sectors all contribute to planning and providing early-education places for four-year-olds and, increasingly, for three-year-olds. As I announced yesterday, we are providing a further £500,000 in direct help for voluntary pre-school groups and playgroups with short-term financial difficulties. That will enable them to play a full part in the expansion of places.

Dr. Starkey: I welcome the additional funds. In my constituency, despite the council's excellent early-years planning, playgroups and nursery classes in schools have drawn my attention to problems that they are experiencing in filling places. That is directly due to the aftermath of the nursery vouchers free-for-all. Will my hon. Friend keep the situation under review, and ensure that playgroups and nursery classes that are experiencing short-term difficulties have the finance to tide them over?

Ms Hodge: Because we wanted to escape from the free-for-all, we introduced early-years development and child care partnerships, so that there could be proper planning for places in each local authority area. This year, for the first time, each partnership has undertaken an audit of both supply and demand in its area, so that there can be sensible provision.
I shall continue to keep an eye on what is happening in Milton Keynes. I am currently considering the plan that it has submitted. I hope that the local authority itself will consider raising the age of admission to reception classes, if it has the capacity so to do.

Mr. John Bercow: In the light of what she has said, will the Minister confirm that she agrees that


the contribution of the pre-school playgroups—including the one that services the children of Marsworth, in my constituency, which I had the privilege of visiting last Friday—is just as valuable as the contribution of school reception classes? Given the primacy of personal choice for parents, does the Minister agree that, at no stage and in no way, should any parents feel that they are being pressurised or corralled into sending their children to school reception classes, as distinct from their preferred choice of pre-school playgroups?

Ms Hodge: Of course we agree—the entire thrust of our policy demonstrates our belief that diversity in provision for children in their early years is absolutely crucial. Over the next three years, we shall be investing £8 billion in providing high-quality and affordable pre-school education, and £8 billion in early education and child care. The important thing is choice for parents, families and children. The choice should be theirs, and not be determined by a producer-led interest. I hope that, in his constituency, the hon. Gentleman will be supporting parents and their children, in ensuring that they are able to choose the setting that best suits children's needs.

University for Industry

Mr. Dennis Canavan: If he will make a statement about progress in establishing the university for industry. [75592]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. George Mudie): Good progress has been made towards establishment of the university for industry. A three-year corporate plan was recently agreed by Ministers as the basis for future planning. This morning, the university for industry announced its proposals to take forward its development and implementation. It intends to publish a summary of those plans shortly. Lord Dearing, the newly appointed board and Dr Anne Wright—the university for industry's chief executive—will lead that exciting work. The university for industry is on target to launch nationally in 2000.

Mr. Canavan: Does my hon. Friend agree that the university for industry is one of the most positive and innovative projects on the education agenda? Bearing in mind that the official launch is supposed to take place next year, will he give us a bit more detail about the project? For example, will the university for industry basically be a national learning resource centre, a degree-awarding body, or both? To what extent will it use existing academic institutions to provide nationwide access to interactive learning technology in the home and the workplace, and in local schools and libraries?

Mr. Mudie: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's warm welcome—

Mr. Don Foster: Surprised?

Mr. Mudie: I am not surprised at all, but very grateful, for my hon. Friend's warm welcome for the institution.

The university for industry will not be a degree-awarding institution. It will be more a broker, bringing together existing institutions, and will—through the technology infrastructure—make individuals aware of services, courses and the availability of places. There is a separate UFI organisation for Scotland, and we are working closely with it in co-ordinating its activities.

Mr. Andrew Lansley: The Minister will be aware that the Budget Red Book makes it clear that only £5 million is to be allocated to the university for industry, and that any other funds will have to be met out of the budget of the Department for Education and Employment. If Ministers have agreed a corporate plan, will the Minister say how much money has been allocated to the university for industry from within his Department's budget, and from which other budget it has been taken? Will he also explain to the House why, last Friday, when I talked to the training and enterprise council in Cambridgeshire and asked about the university for industry, I was told, "All we have seen is material suggesting that it will happen some time, but no one has told us anything about what it will do in practice"?

Mr. Mudie: Similarly unhelpful and ungrateful comments are made about TECs—the hon. Gentleman should pay no attention to them. He should consider the fact that we have been appointing a board, a chief executive and a chairman—and we are delighted that Lord Dearing has accepted. The sum in the Red Book is for development costs. However, now that the corporate plan has been agreed, provision of £44 million will be triggered. The Red Book also does not show the considerable sums for development—about which, two Question Times ago, the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) asked me—provided from European Adapt funds.

New Deal (Young People)

Mr. David Lock: What proposals his Department has to ensure that young people on the gateway section of new deal have the skills needed to hold down full-time jobs.[75593]

The Minister for Employment, Welfare to Work and Equal Opportunities (Mr. Andrew Smith): The gateway help for young people includes jobsearch, careers advice and guidance and support with basic skills. There is also specialist help for those who have suffered homelessness, alcohol or substance abuse.

Mr. Lock: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that answer. Does he agree that the gateway phase is vital to enable young people to move from benefit into work? Taking people from a life on the dole and giving them the skills necessary to hold down a job is a crucial building block for the first stage of their career. Will he join me in commending the valuable work done by the new deal advisers in Worcestershire, where the programme has been such a success, in preparing young people for work?

Mr. Smith: I am pleased to join my hon. Friend in congratulating the advisers and others working on the new deal in his county. They, too, will appreciate the active support that he has given the new deal. He is right to say that the gateway has been an outstandingly successful feature of the new deal. The continuity of support from personal advisers is greatly welcomed by

clients and employers. The extra money made available in the Budget will enable us to develop pre-employment involvement in training on the part of employers and other still more intensive help to ensure that even the hardest to help get the maximum benefit from the gateway, thereby enabling them to move into productive employment.

Business of the House

Sir George Young: Will the Leader of the House give the House the business for next week?

The President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mrs. Margaret Beckett): The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY 22 MARCH—Opposition Day [8th Allotted Day]
Until about 7 o'clock there will be a debate entitled "Government Responsibility for Council Tax Increases" followed by a debate on Europe, America and the World Trade Organisation. Both debates will arise on motions in the name of the Liberal Democrats.
Proceedings on the Consolidated Fund (No. 2) Bill.
TUESDAY 23 MARCH—Remaining stages of the Local Government Bill.
WEDNESDAY 24 MARcH—Until 2 o'clock there will be debates on the motion for the Adjournment of the House.
Second Reading of the Access to Justice Bill [Lords].
THURSDAY 25 MARCH—There will be a debate on defence in the world on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
FRIDAY 26 MARCH—Private Members' Bills.
The provisional business for the following week will be as follows:
MONDAY 29 MARCH—There will be a debate on the Stephen Lawrence inquiry on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
TUESDAY 30 MARCH—Progress on remaining stages of the Employment Relations Bill.
WEDNESDAY 31 MARCH—Until 2 o'clock there will be debates on the Motion for the Adjournment of the House, which will include the usual three-hour pre-recess debate.
Conclusion of remaining stages of the Employment Relations Bill.
The House will also wish to know that on Tuesday 23 March there will be a debate on reform of the structural and cohesion funds in European Standing Committee C and that on Wednesday 24 March there will be a debate on the deliberate release into the environment of genetically modified organisms in European Standing Committee A. Details of the relevant documents will be given in the Official Report.
[Tuesday 23 March:
European Standing Committee C—Relevant European Union documents: Unnumbered, Reform of the Structural Funds; Unnumbered, Agenda 2000: Cohesion Fund Amendment; 5480/99, European Regional Development Fund. Relevant European Scrutiny Committee Reports: HC 34 xii (1998–99); Relevant European Legislation Committee Report: HC 155-xxvii (1997–98).
Wednesday 24 March 1999:
European Standing Committee A—Relevant European Union document: 6378/98, Deliberate Release into the Environment of Genetically Modified Organisms. Relevant European Scrutiny Committee Report: HC 34iii (1998–99) Relevant European Legislation Committee Report: HC 155-xxvi (1997–98).]
The House will also wish to be reminded that, subject to the progress of business, it will be proposed that the House will rise for the Easter recess at the end of business on Wednesday 31 March until the start of business on Tuesday 13 April.

Sir George Young: The House is grateful for details of next week's business and an indication of business for the following week. We welcome the fact that the right hon. Lady has found time for a debate on the Stephen Lawrence inquiry.
Can it be right that at no time in the four weeks following the constitutional crisis that hit the European Union on Monday will the House of Commons debate that subject? Has not the House led the world in showing how the Executive are held to account, in combating fraud in the public sector and in promoting democratic accountability? Should not the voice of this House be heard in the critical weeks that lie ahead, not least on the proposed pay-offs for some members of the Commission and on the proposals put forward by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and others for validating future nominations?
Should not we also debate the crisis at the nationality and immigration department of the Home Office, where only six per cent. of calls get through and where people begin to start to queue at four in the morning? People end up being trapped in this country for six months or more because the Home Office has their passport. That department also has a backlog of 200,000 case files—occupying some 14 miles of shelving—many of which are inaccessible, because the garage in which they are stored is not considered safe to access.
Key meetings are being held this weekend in Washington and Rambouillet on the future of Northern Ireland and Kosovo. Can the Leader of the House tell us whether we might expect statements on either or both of those meetings at the beginning of next week?
Finally, the Leader of the House said on Tuesday that she would provide time for a debate on the White Paper on the reform of the second Chamber, now that the House of Lords Bill has left this House. When will that debate take place?

Mrs. Beckett: First, I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman that this House and this country have taken a strong lead in combating fraud and promoting sound management, including sound financial management. I take his point that, because of the Easter recess, no debate is scheduled to consider the EU crisis. Equally, until the Berlin special summit next week, for example, it will not be clear what shape the relevant discussions will take.
I take the right hon. Gentleman's point about pay-offs, but he will be aware that the contracts which have led to such payments long pre-date this Government. In so far as we have redundancy arrangements in this House for members of the Executive, they do not depend on behaviour.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about validating nominations for EU Commissioners. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister pointed out yesterday, the Conservatives have made their own nomination for the new Commission—accession to which would normally follow the European elections—without seeing the necessity to change the procedures. Indeed, they saw no need to do so when they were in power.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to the crisis in the handling of immigration and nationality cases. All Members of Parliament are aware of those concerns and the problems caused. Part of the reason for the crisis is the work that is now having to be undertaken to lay the foundation for a better service—including work on providing new information technology systems. As for the nature and scale of the crisis, all those who were Members of this House eight to 10 ago years will be well aware that whatever the current crisis might be, it pales into insignificance compared with the situation then. Clearly, the right hon. Gentleman has forgotten the days when, under the Government of which he was a member, the backlog was six months' worth of post, which was not even opened, never mind dealt with. We need no lessons from the Conservatives on this matter.
We are doing our best to keep the House informed of the outcome of the meeting in Rambouillet and of the discussions on Northern Ireland. It is not clear what the outcome will be, but I will bear in mind the right hon. Gentleman's request for a statement. I cannot tell him, at this moment, whether I expect there to be the need for one at the beginning of next week.
The right hon. Gentleman will know that I have undertaken to find time for a debate on the White Paper on House of Lords reform. It will not be held in the near future, but certainly it will happen before the summer.

Mr. Paul Flynn: May we have a debate on the role of the independent Members of Parliament throughout this century? Our parliamentary system has benefited from, and will continue to be based on, party political systems, but is it not right to look at what has happened in the past—and in recent years, as we now have a solitary independent Member of Parliament? Although we normally disapprove of politicians breaking their election promises, the role that has been played by the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Bell)—which has been unique and valuable in many respects, including his contributions on landmines, the honours system and warfare—has been so important that the honourable thing for him to do would be to break that election promise, seek election in Tatton next time and seek also the multiplication of his kind in this House.

Madam Speaker: Did the hon. Gentleman give notice to the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Bell)?

Mr. Flynn: I did not, but

Madam Speaker: If he had, the hon. Member for Tatton would probably have been too embarrassed to turn up.

Mrs. Beckett: It is rare that any hon. Member needs to be given notice of being paid great compliments. Of course, I take my hon. Friend's point. The role played by the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Bell) has attracted praise. I would normally hesitate to be drawn into commenting on the affairs of another political party, and I feel even greater caution when it is a political party of one.

Mr. Paul Tyler: Following the question from the right hon. Member for North-West

Hampshire (Sir G. Young) on the developing situations in Kosovo and Northern Ireland and the European crisis, does the Leader of the House agree that if, particularly following the Berlin summit, it proves necessary to have a debate before Easter, the House could continue to sit on Maundy Thursday? We would all prefer to avoid that, but I hope that she agrees that it would be wrong for us to adjourn for our recess without debating those important matters.
We also hope for a statement before the recess on the Monopolies and Mergers Commission inquiry into the milk industry. The dairy sector is already in dire trouble, and the continuing indecision about the report and the failure to publish it so that it can be debated is causing huge concern. Will the Leader of the House communicate to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food that milk producers are not in a monopolistic position, although milk buyers are in an oligopolistic position, and ask him to make a statement?
The Leader of the House may have noted that some questions were asked yesterday of the Minister for the Cabinet Office about the labelling of genetically modified food. He was not able to make a statement to the House, but I understand that a statement was made to a press conference this morning. Will she acknowledge that the issue is far too important for such treatment? There is wide public concern, and the House should be the first to hear of the Government's proposals.

Mrs. Beckett: If events occur in Kosovo, Northern Ireland or the European Union of such magnitude or clarity that it is necessary or possible to make a statement on them, the Government will of course bear that in mind. I said in my announcement that the House would rise subject to progress on business. I am not sure that all the hon. Gentleman's colleagues would share his enthusiasm for sitting on Maundy Thursday.

Mr. Eric Forth: They are all off on holiday.

Mrs. Beckett: I was not going to say that.
Of course I understand the concerns about the MMC report on milk. I cannot undertake for a statement to be made next week. The hon. Gentleman will know that these are difficult matters in which Ministers play a quasi-judicial role, so the report can be published only when all the right steps have been taken.
My understanding is that it is Agriculture Ministers, not Cabinet Office Ministers, who laid the regulations about labelling this morning and who may perhaps have held a press conference.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: Following the request of the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) for a statement or debate about the Euro-crisis, has my right hon. Friend considered the possibility that the so-called crisis did not result in people like me shedding any tears? The truth is that I could almost revel in it. I could see the very core of the Common Market beginning to break up. Why do we need a Commission at all? Let us save a lot of money and not replace the 20 Commissioners. We have the Council of Ministers and the so-called Parliament. What else do we need? We must think the unthinkable at times like this


and get rid of them. As for all the redundancy pay, the Tories have a cheek to talk about that, because nearly a dozen Tory Ministers got the sack, including Hamilton, and they all ran away with the redundancy money.

Mrs. Beckett: I am confident that my hon. Friend is seeking either a statement or a debate on those matters. He makes, as he will appreciate, a bold and sweeping suggestion and I doubt whether the Government will be able to come to such conclusions, certainly within the time scale of the business statement.

Mr. Humfrey Mahas: My constituent, Paul Connolly, was a civilian employed in direct support of United Kingdom forces in the Gulf war and has since suffered serious ill health. He is one of thousands of veterans who have suffered and not been compensated. Will the Leader of the House find time for a statement or debate on the issue of Gulf war veterans, their illnesses and when they might be compensated?

Mrs. Beckett: I fear that I cannot offer the hon. Gentleman time in the near future for a debate on the serious problems suffered by his constituent, about which I am sorry to hear, as I know the House will be. However, the hon. Gentleman may find other opportunities to raise the matter in an Adjournment debate and he may also catch your eye, Madam Speaker. during the defence debate that I have announced.

Mr. Gordon Prentice: My right hon. Friend will know that the Channel 4 broadcaster, Sheena McDonald, was knocked over by a speeding police car in Islington last month and suffered serious injuries. I have since unearthed figures that show that, last year, 2,123 people were knocked down by speeding police cars answering 999 calls or other emergencies. Hundreds of people were seriously injured and 15 died last year, and those figures are not out of the ordinary. We see such carnage every year. Is there not a case for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to make a statement to the House about what advice and guidance he has issued to chief constables about how police cars are driven in such circumstances?

Mrs. Beckett: All hon. Members will share the concern that my hon. Friend has expressed, both about the tragic accident involving Sheena McDonald and about the other people who suffered injury or were killed. At the moment, I cannot call to mind the statistics for the percentage of accidents reflected by the figures that my hon. Friend has given, but I will draw his remarks to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. However, my hon. Friend will probably find that those are operational matters for chief constables, rather than directly for Ministers.

Mr. Michael Jack: Before the last Liberal leaves for his Easter holidays, may I press the Leader of the House to explain clearly why the House should not have its say on matters connected with the European Commission and recent events before the die is firmly cast with reference to its future? The Leader of the House will recall a debate in which we discussed the democratic deficit and questions of accountability in the work of the Commission and the European Union. Would not it be a

good idea to have a debate before Easter so that we could make our contribution to the deliberations on the future of the Commission?

Mrs. Beckett: Of course no one is saying that there will be no debate: none of us knows how quickly those matters will be resolved. I am confident that hon. Members will take all the opportunities available to them, in the pre-recess debates, for example, and at Prime Minister's Question Time, to continue to raise those issues.

Mr. Harry Barnes: Caretakers are not normally well paid, and nor do they receive massive pay-offs when they resign. It seems to be different in the case of European Union Commissioners. Should we not have a debate soon on the fraud report? Should we not influence what our representatives do at the Berlin special summit, and should we not have a separate debate after the summit?

Mrs. Beckett: I shall bear my hon. Friend's remarks in mind. As I said to the right hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack) a moment ago, hon. Members who catch the Speaker's eye in our pre-recess debates will be able to raise many issues, of which that may be one. The original report from the Court of Auditors on EU fraud was debated in a European Standing Committee, as recommended by the Select Committee on European Scrutiny. The underlying concerns raised by hon. Members have therefore been under review, and that will continue to be the case.

Rev. Martin Smyth: May I reiterate requests for an early debate on Northern Ireland? Kosovo is an international issue, but Northern Ireland is a matter internal to the United Kingdom. In a week in which violence has escalated and in which there have been two brutal murders, we should not set Northern Ireland aside.
Will the Leader of the House investigate whether the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs might look into breaches of justice and human rights infringements in the United States of America, whose Foreign Relations Committee seeks to hold a hearing on the Royal Ulster Constabulary?

Mrs. Beckett: It is not for me to tell the Foreign Affairs Committee what it should debate, but I am sure that the Committee will note the hon. Gentleman's remarks.
The hon. Gentleman asked for a debate on Northern Ireland, saying rightly that we should not set that subject aside. Of course the Government will not set aside Northern Ireland, but I doubt whether events are moving at such a pace that we will be able to debate the matter before the Easter recess. I shall of course bear the hon. Gentleman's remarks in mind.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: Albeit I have been lucky in gaining an Adjournment debate on the bombing of the Al Shifa plant on Wednesday, and although there is a defence debate on Thursday, should not the House receive a statement from either the Prime Minister or the Foreign Secretary on the political objectives—not the defence aspects—of the bombing? In particular, should not we have such a statement before anyone embarks on the counter-productive folly of bombing the Slays,


thus creating a situation in Kosovo and with the Russians that would have endless consequences? In particular, may we have a statement on the Russian attitude to what has happened?

Mrs. Beckett: With respect, the Government are not responsible for the attitude of the Russian Government. Certainly, I take my hon. Friend's point that he is anxious to pursue issues on the objectives of bombing. I must disagree with his suggestion that political objectives are not a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence. Of course they are; the Secretary of State holds those responsibilities in common with other members of the Government, and they are very much part of his remit.
I must also take issue with my hon. Friend's suggestion that he has been lucky to gain an Adjournment debate on the matter. Assiduous is the word that I would use.

Mr. Forth: The Leader of the House will of course have read The Sun this morning, and she will therefore know that members of the outraged road haulage industry will hold a major demonstration on Monday about the costs that the Government have put on the industry. She will not know, however, that my constituent, Mr. Houghton, rang me this morning to make the same point personally. He fears for his livelihood, and for the livelihoods of his colleagues in the industry, as a direct result of what the Government are doing. Will the Leader of the House confirm that newspaper stories about a possible change of mind are true? May we have an early debate or a statement next week to coincide with the demonstration and to reassure the industry that the Government have got their policy wrong and will change it?

Mrs. Beckett: I fear that I cannot promise an early debate, all the more because there will be every opportunity to discuss the matter during debates on the Finance Bill, which will come before the House soon. We all look forward with interest to hearing the case of those who have expressed concern. I point out to the right hon. Gentleman that one must compare like with like: other costs for road hauliers are substantially lower here than in some of the countries with which the hauliers are making comparisons about fuel costs. I remind him that the highest increase in fuel duty during the past 10 years—13 per cent.—occurred in 1995 when the Conservative Government, of whom he was a member, were in power.

Mr. Syd Rapson: As my right hon. Friend has been unfairly blamed for all the problems with the millennium bug, does she accept the blame for the baby boom that will result from last night's over-indulgence in conception activity, no doubt because of the magnificent football match in which Manchester United stuffed the opposition?

Mrs. Beckett: I fear that I cannot find time for a debate on any of those issues during the next couple of weeks, or indeed in the near future. I thank my hon. Friend for his kind remarks and hasten to assure him that I do not take responsibility for any problems that result from the millennium bug; I take responsibility for the action that

the Government are taking to minimise those problems, and am happy to do so. I certainly take no responsibility at all for the other issues that he raises.

Mr. John Wilkinson: Yesterday, in answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), the Prime Minister said that
appointments are of course always subject to parliamentary scrutiny".—[Official Report, 17 March 1999; Vol. 327, c. 1116.]
My right hon. Friend was referring to the necessity of United Kingdom appointments to the European Commission being approved in advance by the House—and rightly so, in view of early-day motion 437, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major) and the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), which states:
[That in the opinion of this House the names of British commissioners to serve in the European Union should be approved by the House of Commons before appointment.]
If the Prime Minister's words are to have any meaning, and as the British taxpayer funds, to some degree, the salaries and the pay-offs of the European Commissioners, will the right hon. Lady find it in her heart to heed the genuine feeling expressed by right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House to hold a debate on a matter whose gravity deserves the immediate attention of this Parliament? If her relationship with the Liberal. Democrats has any validity, could they not give up their Supply day on Monday for such a debate?

Mrs. Beckett: First, the hon. Gentleman refers to the pay-offs that might be due to retiring members of the European Commission. I remind him that, as I said earlier, the contracts under which any such moneys are due were not negotiated under the stewardship of the Labour Government. Secondly, he mentions the genuine feeling on both sides of the House; I appreciate and accept that some Members might have such feelings, but would point out to him that, as Conservative Members have felt the necessity to scrutinise those matters only in the past 10 days, the genuineness of their concern is called into question.

Mr. Martin Salter: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the proposals to privatise all or part of National Air Traffic Services have caused considerable concern to residents living near our major airports, to Members of Parliament who represent those constituencies and, most importantly, to the air traffic controllers, whose safety record is second to none? Has she been briefed on yesterday's successful lobby by the Institution of Professionals, Managers and Specialists against those proposals? Does she agree that a full parliamentary debate is needed on that important safety issue once the current consultation period is over?

Mrs. Beckett: I am aware of the great concern felt about those matters and of the consultation exercise. At present, I cannot undertake to find time for a debate when that exercise has been completed, but my hon. Friend is right to draw attention to its importance and the Government will take its results on board.

Mr. Christopher Gill: May we have an emergency debate on the crisis facing small abattoirs?


Right hon. and hon. Members with abattoirs in their constituencies will be aware that, as a result of the impost of astronomical increases in meat inspection charges, prospectively from 1 April this year, many small abattoirs will be driven out of business. I use those words advisedly. Those abattoirs will not go out of business as a result of market forces or because they are not competitive; they will be driven out of business by the Government impost of those astronomically high charges. Once they close, they will never reopen and that will spell the end of the craft sector of the meat industry for all time.

Mrs. Beckett: I fear that I cannot offer to find time for an emergency debate on that matter. However, the hon. Gentleman might seek to raise the subject in the pre-recess debates.

Miss Julie Kirkbride: May I press the right hon. Lady on the complacent answer that she gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) regarding the road haulage industry? The Government normally pay a great deal of attention to what appears on the front page of The Sun, and we now know that there will be a white van jam in London on Monday morning. I draw the right hon. Lady's attention to the leader in this morning's edition of that paper, which says:
Stop drivers being robbed at the petrol pump".
The Government's diesel price increases are astronomical, and it behoves the British public to remember that, every time they fill up their cars, £8.50 of every £10 they spend on petrol goes in tax.

Mrs. Beckett: The hon. Lady accuses me of complacency, but there was nothing complacent about my reply to the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth). I simply pointed out that far higher increases in duty were imposed by the Government of which he was a member and of which the hon. Lady was a supporter.
I understand the concerns that have been expressed. As I said earlier, it is important for people to take account of other lower costs in the road haulage industry. The Budget that continued the use of the fuel escalator—which was introduced by the Conservatives—also froze vehicle excise duty for 98 per cent. of lorries and reduced the road tax for low-emission lorries. I remind the hon. Lady of the words of the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) when, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he introduced the fuel escalator. He said:
Any critic of the Government's"—
that is, the Conservative Government's—
tax plans who claims also to support the international agreement to curb carbon dioxide emissions will be sailing dangerously near to hypocrisy."—[Official Report. 30 November 1993; Vol. 233, c. 939.]

Mr. Phil Hope: My right hon. Friend will be aware that today sees the launch of the gift aid 2000 scheme by the Chancellor and Eddie Izzard—of whom only the latter is a cross-dresser. Millennium gift aid encourages people to give donations to support education and anti-poverty projects in the world's 80 poorest countries. For every £100 donation, the Government will give £30 in tax relief to the charities and voluntary

organisations that do that excellent work. Will my right hon. Friend find time to debate that scheme in the House of Commons? Perhaps that debate could take place in the context of discussing other Budget proposals such as the review of charity taxation, which is under consultation. That will develop a range of new proposals which will support charities, individuals and business donations to charities, and which the voluntary sector will appreciate very much.

Mrs. Beckett: I thank my hon. Friend, who has always taken a great interest in the voluntary sector and in the work of charities, for that information. Like all hon. Members, we welcome the steps that the Chancellor felt able to take in the Budget to support and bolster the work of such organisations. I fear that I cannot offer to find time for a special, separate debate on that issue, but I feel confident that the matter can be explored during debate on the Finance Bill.

Mr. John Hayes: The Leader of the House has resisted calls by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride) for a debate on the haulage industry. Will she make time to debate specifically the effect on unemployment in rural constituencies of the swingeing increases in diesel duty? The Leader of the House will know that many haulage companies are based in rural constituencies, where they are significant employers. I refer her to the excellent article by Tim Spanton that appears in today's edition of The Sun. It is a piece of investigative journalism for which the House should be very grateful. Will the right hon. Lady take note of that article and make time for a debate on the employment effects of the swingeing increases in petrol and diesel prices?

Mrs. Beckett: I always take note of what is said in newspapers such as The Sun. Indeed, I noted the great welcome The Sun gave to the Budget, which it said would advantage every group in Britain. I remind the hon. Gentleman of what I said to both the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst and the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride). First, it is important to compare like with like and to consider the haulage industry's overall costs, not just fuel costs. Secondly, the previous Government, of which the hon. Gentleman was a supporter, first introduced the fuel duty escalator. Thirdly, this is not the largest rise that has ever been imposed—that was imposed by his Government in 1995.

Dr. Julian Lewis: Will the right hon. Lady find time for a debate on the substance of early-day motion 436?
[That this House notes with concern the Prime Minister's Answer of 10th March, Official Report, column 358, that there is a 'net tax cut of £4.5 billion' for the coming year, because the total tax increase in the coming year is £7.1 billion; further notes that the Prime Minister's claim not to have raised taxes but to have cut them has been described by the eminent economist Anatole Kaletsky as `simply false'; recalls the Prime Minister's previous assertion that any Minister giving false information to the House would speedily correct the mistake; and calls on the Prime Minister immediately to correct his false assertion and apologise to the House.]


That motion has been signed by 59 right hon. and hon. Members and relates to the Prime Minister's suggestion that there has been a net tax cut of £4.5 billion for the year ahead, whereas there will be a total tax increase of £7.1 billion in the coming year. Does the right hon. Lady agree that such a debate would give the Prime Minister or his spokesman ample opportunity to explain why, if their figures are right and ours are wrong, the eminent economist Anatole Kaletsky has described the Prime Minister's figures as simply false?

Mrs. Beckett: First, the hon. Gentleman asked me for a special debate, and I say to him, as I have said to others, that those matters can be aired in the debates on the Finance Bill. Anatole Kaletsky is certainly distinguished, but he is not necessarily therefore always right. I prefer to rest on the judgment of organisations such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies. In response to his assertion about the correctness of his figures over those given by the Prime Minister, I simply say to him that it was never possible in the past to trust figures given by his party, and it is not possible now.

Mr. Andrew Lansley: Will the Leader of the House arrange for a debate next Monday or Tuesday on the EU Commission's resignation and the special summit in Berlin? The Prime Minister has been aware for more than two months of the date of publication of the inquiry into fraud and nepotism in the Commission, and the date of the special summit was known for a similarly long time. There is, therefore, no excuse for the Government not having provided time for a debate. Will the right hon. Lady remind the House on how many occasions in the past we have had an opportunity to debate the issues relating to a summit of the European Council of Ministers in advance of the meeting, rather than afterwards?

Mrs. Beckett: Of course, there are arrangements for discussing issues relating to the European summit which broadly circle the pre-arranged regular meetings of the European Council. No such special arrangements have ever been made for informal or special Councils. Those matters can and will be aired in debate. The hon. Gentleman asserted that the Government should have found time for a debate on those matters early next week, but he wants to prejudge the outcome of the inquiry that was set up following the initiative of my colleagues in the European Parliament. The Government are not prepared to do so and we await the outcome of that inquiry.

Mr. Andrew Robathan: Tomorrow, the business of the House will be a debate on implementing some of the recommendations of the Neill committee, particularly those relating to referendums. That has cross-party support and is firmly supported by the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Bell), of whom we heard a eulogy earlier. Will the Leader of the House pledge that her Government will enact all the recommendations of the fifth report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life? Will she further pledge that her Government,—particularly the

Home Secretary, who is sitting next to her—will do nothing to block the enactment of the Neill committee's recommendations?

Mrs. Beckett: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is perfectly well aware, as a result of a statement made by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary when the Neill report was published, that the Government are studying that report very carefully. I cannot give him the undertaking that he demands that there will be complete acceptance of all the recommendations. We are carefully examining those fundamental proposals.

Mr. John Bercow: Further to the request by my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) and in the light of the pitifully inadequate response by Ministers to the Budget debate, can we have an early debate, in Government time, on the Government's stealth taxes? Given that the Labour manifesto, of which I think I need to remind the right hon. Lady, says:
How and what governments tax sends clear signals about the economic activities they believe should be encouraged or discouraged, and the values they wish to entrench in society",
does she accept that it is incumbent on Ministers to explain, as they failed to do during the Budget debate, why people who have mortgages, who are married, who put petrol in their cars, who have pensions, who acquire savings, who buy property and who run businesses should all face a draconian increase in taxation under this Government?

Mrs. Beckett: That was a lengthy if not a very pertinent question. I am sure that all such matters can be raised in Finance Bill debates.

Mr. Owen Paterson: On 11 November, I secured an Adjournment debate on the crisis in the road haulage industry. The video of that debate is being shown all around the country at hauliers' meetings. The lamentable ignorance of the Economic Secretary to the Treasury and her failure to reply to the points made are much commented on. Three colleagues have brought up the subject this morning. Sadly, the Leader of the House has not taken on board the seriousness of the damage that will be inflicted not just on the strategic industry, which is in danger of losing 26,000 jobs, but on the whole economy. An uncompetitive haulage industry would damage every business in the land. We would be looking at another 26,000 job losses—more than would be lost in the west midlands were Longbridge to close. This is an urgent issue of national importance which affects every constituency. Could we please find time for a debate?

Mrs. Beckett: I say again to the hon. Gentleman, who accuses me of not taking on board the seriousness of the issue, that it is not for me to answer on this subject. I am here to discuss which debates we will have in the House. He asked for time for a debate and there will be all the time in the world during proceedings on the Finance Bill—he will be able to stay up until the small hours of the morning—to discuss the road haulage industry. He will then be able to circulate the video of those debates, which I am sure will gain even greater applause.

Sir Patrick Cormack: I appreciate that, when the right hon. Lady was planning


the business of the House, she was not aware of the crisis about to erupt in the European Union. She has heard Members from all parts of the House express a desire for a debate on that matter. The business for next Tuesday and Wednesday is important—of course it is—but not as crucial or urgent as the Prime Minister hearing hon. Members' views, as he ought, before he goes to the Berlin summit. Will she rearrange Tuesday's or Wednesday's business so that the House has the opportunity to debate on the Adjournment the issues that will be discussed in Berlin? They are vital and relevant to every hon. Member and all our constituents. May we please have that debate?

Mrs. Beckett: I will certainly bear in mind what the hon. Gentleman says, but cannot undertake to rearrange next week's business. Indeed, I suspect that there will not be much to do in such a debate, other than bemoan the events that have brought us to this pass. He can do that without a debate next week.

Point of Order

Mr. Andrew Lansley: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. You will be aware of the understandable anger in the road haulage industry about the costs that the Government are imposing on it, and their complacent attitude to it, which has led to the prospect of a large demonstration in London on Monday. Have you received notice of any difficulty that the police may have in ensuring Members' access to the House on Monday under the terms of the sessional orders? Will any special arrangements have to be made?

Madam Speaker: I am sure that the hon. Member appreciates that this House has dealt quite well indeed with such sizeable lobbies in the past. We have become accustomed to doing so over a good many years. I assure him that we shall do our utmost, as we always have done, to ensure that all steps are taken to enable those who are lobbying—quite peacefully, one hopes—to have access to their representatives, and that the lobby around the precincts of the Palace and in this House is conducted in the best possible order. I hope that Members who are involved in the lobby, and who want to see the people who are coming here, will support and help the authorities on Monday in their efforts to see that everything is carried out in the best possible order.

BILL PRESENTED

ENERGY SAVING MATERIALS (VAT RELIEF)

Mr. Alan Simpson, supported by Mr. Cynog Dafis, Mr. Matthew Taylor, Mr. Peter Bottomley, Mr. John McAllion, Mrs. Margaret Ewing, Mr. Clive Efford, Sir Teddy Taylor, Ms Roseanna Cunningham, Mr. David Chaytor and Mr. John Hayes, presented a Bill to extend VAT relief on energy saving materials; to require the preparation of reports on energy saving materials; and for related purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on 26 March, and to be printed [Bill 68].

Opposition Day

[7TH ALLOTTED DAY]

Policing

Madam Speaker: I have selected the amendment standing in the name of the Prime Minister.

Sir Norman Fowler: I beg to move,
That this House pays tribute to the high standards of policing in this country; endorses the priority of the last Conservative Government in increasing the strength of the police by over 15,000; but deplores the policies of the present Government, which are leading to reductions in police strength, cuts in services and the introduction of non-police patrols at a time when it is essential to build the best possible relations between police and public.
The debate is set against the background of a much bigger national debate about the role and position of the police in Britain. That is, in my view, a debate of fundamental importance, in relation to which the Government risk adopting exactly the wrong policies for the challenge that we face. That debate has been given added force by the publication of the Macpherson report, and it is with that report that I start.
The Macpherson report is undoubtedly important—not only because of the tragedy of Stephen Lawrence's murder, but because of the changes and reforms that the report points to, which we shall debate shortly. However, let me say first what the Macpherson report does not say and does not justify. It does not justify a generalised attack on the police service. It does not justify a generalised attack on the thousands of policemen and policewomen who do their job conscientiously and well, sometimes despite enormous difficulty and danger. It does not justify a generalised attack on the standards of the police in this country, which in my view remain high—probably higher than those of any comparable European country.
Of course, errors must be put right and mistakes corrected, but we should be clear in our minds that we do not have a racist police service; the Macpherson report does not say that we have. Enemies of the police should not pervert the message of the report to that end.
What we do have is a police service that, in one respect, leads Europe and, arguably, the world. It is not that the British police are better equipped, and goodness knows it is not because we have the strongest police service numerically; it is that there is greater trust between police and public in this country than anywhere else. Most people regard the police as their friends and allies. In February 1999, a Gallup poll in The Daily Telegraph found that no less than 83 per cent. of the public found the police mainly polite and helpful. Obviously, we need to extend that feeling of trust even more, but I very much doubt that such trust exists in France and Germany.
The police service is not one of our worst, but one of our best services in Britain, and it has been consistently successful in its public order task since the second world war. Any Government who were to put that relationship at risk would deserve censure.
None of what I have said is an argument against change; change is part of any organisation. When the police service was established, the police had to fight for

acceptance, so there is nothing new in their fighting for acceptance, or improving their efficiency and effectiveness—but all that must be for a purpose. As the chief inspector of constabulary suggested a few days ago, the most important performance indicator is the local community satisfaction rate—how satisfied the public are with the local police.
What do the public want of the police? They want an efficient police service, but they want more than that. They do not want a police service that simply reacts and responds to emergencies and emergency calls. According to the Gallup poll that I mentioned earlier, their greatest complaint is as follows. No less than 79 per cent. of the public agree with the statement that the police are invisible and that there are too few bobbies on the beat. In other words, what the public want is an extension of community policing. My concern, and the concern of virtually everyone whom I respect on the matter, is that Government policy is taking us in exactly the opposite direction. Rather than more police, we shall have fewer. Rather than better services, we shall have worse. Rather than trained police, we are being offered non-police patrols.
I debated some of those issues with the Minister of State, Home Office on the "Today" programme this morning. It is always interesting when the Minister of State, rather than the Secretary of State, does an interview. I stress that I am not critical of that decision; I know how sensitive the Secretary of State can be.
When I was Secretary of State for Social Services, I told my then Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), that it was time that he raised his profile and did interviews on cold weather payments.

Mr. Conn Pickthall: It did not do the right hon. Gentleman any harm.

Sir Norman Fowler: I do not know what happened to my right hon. Friend. I also remember telling my other Minister of State, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), that he could tap his cigar over John Humphrys, rather than in my office. I think that it was in that spirit that the Minister of State was deputed to the "Today" studio to discuss the police.
The Minister of State's account of Government policy on the police provided an entirely new perspective on the police service under this Government. The police service may think that it is under pressure but, according to the Minister of State, real-terms spending on the police is up, police forces are rolling in cash, and policemen are falling over one another as they patrol the streets of our towns and cities. As for non-police patrols, he has not even heard of them, or of the prospect of introducing them. That is the wonderful world of Walt Boateng.
If that is the case, it is strange that those who must implement the Government's policy do not seem to see it in quite the same way. The response of the Association of Chief Police Officers to the 1999–2000 Budget settlement could have been written in reply to the Minister of State's injunction, "Let's be real". ACPO's response stated:
This settlement leaves the police service well short of what it needs. Let's be realistic. Government cannot expect any public service, least of all the police with their wide responsibilities, to meet all the public's expectations with such a shortfall.


The Association of Police Authorities, which has a Labour chairman, said of the same settlement:
The overall increase in spending provision for police authorities in England and Wales is 2.7 per cent. Even when augmented by locally generated efficiency gains, this will be inadequate to meet the current demands facing police authorities, let alone provide for growth and investment.
The Police Federation commented:
One of this Government's main manifesto pledges was to support law and order. But Treasury officials have swung the axe on police budgets. This will result in fewer police officers, the closure of local stations and a reduction in front line services.
Who is right—Home Office Ministers or the police service, which has to manage as best it can with the budget that it has been given?
I have figures calculated by the statistical section of the House of Commons Library. Between 1979–80 and 1996–97, there was a 354 per cent. cash increase for the police. In real terms—that is, above inflation—there was a 74 per cent. increase in those years.
On the basis of this Government's spending plans, between 1997–1998 and 2001–02, there will be an 11.2 per cent. cash increase for the police, which amounts to a real-terms increase of 0.7 per cent. That is the difference in priority between the Conservative Government's policy on the police, and that of the present Government.

Mr. Oliver Heald: rose—

Ms Hazel Blears: rose

Sir Norman Fowler: I shall give way to my hon. Friend, and then to the hon. Lady.

Mr. Heald: Does my right hon. Friend agree that Labour Members are obviously so embarrassed by Home Office Ministers' explanations that only three of them are present?

Sir Norman Fowler: It is probably 0.7 per cent.

Ms Blears: If, as the right hon. Gentleman says, expenditure on the police rose under the Conservative Government's stewardship, how does he explain that the 2.5 million recorded crimes in 1979 rose to 4.5 million when the Conservatives left office?

Sir Norman Fowler: As the hon. Lady knows, crime came down steeply in the last four or five years of the Conservative Government. If she does not know that, she knows nothing about the crime position. However, I rather agree with the Home Secretary on that point. I do not think that there is a direct correlation between police numbers and crime. My point concerns not only crime. For the Home Secretary to make a speech only about crime figures would miss the whole point of the debate and, with respect, the hon. Lady is in danger of doing so.
This debate is about not just crime rates, but public order and having the trust of the public. To achieve that, the police service needs credible strength, and nowhere and never has that challenge been greater than it is today in the aftermath of the Macpherson report.

Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the work of the police in the

community extends beyond crime? One of the problems in Derbyshire in the past has been the investigation of fatal road accidents, which takes a heck of a lot of police time, a matter which I have pursued with Ministers. That matter is not crime related, but it is important to the public.

Sir Norman Fowler: I agree, and it is a point that I shall try to develop. Crime and its prevention are obviously vastly important, but a range of other issues are fundamental to relations between police and public.
To put the figures another way, the statistical section of the Library confirms that under the previous Government, there was an average annual increase in spending in real terms on the police of 3.3 per cent. a year. If that was converted to cash, this Government would be spending an additional £1.3 billion during the next three years. That is the difference.
That is one reason why the previous Conservative Government were able to increase the strength of the police by 15,300. As far as I know, no one, not even the Minister of State, seriously believes that that is what the Government are about. Police numbers are not going up, but coming down. In the first 18 months of this Government, they have come down by about 800, and the fear of many chief constables is that, during the next two or three years, they will drop further.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Jack Straw): In what month was the budget for 1997–98 set?

Sir Norman Fowler: The budget for 1997–98, the budget that takes us forward—no, I do not know the answer. The right hon. Gentleman obviously knows the answer, so I shall let him give it.
I am beginning to see a glimmer of the right hon. Gentleman's point. He is saying that the budget was set in the previous year. That is correct. But there was nothing to prevent the Government from increasing the budget. The right hon. Gentleman has used exactly the same arguments about inheriting spending commitments for the years after that. The Government must take responsibility for their spending in that period.

Mr. Straw: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Sir Norman Fowler: No, let me finish. Even the Home Secretary concedes that the past three years—[Interruption.] If the Home Secretary wants to take part in the debate, will he listen?

Mr. Straw: I will.

Sir Norman Fowler: The past three years were undoubtedly and unquestionably the Government's responsibility. Is the Home Secretary challenging the fact—let me ask him directly—that, on average during our period in government, we spent 3.3 per cent. in real terms above inflation? Is he challenging the fact that, under his Government, that amount will be drastically reduced, to the extent that he will be lucky if he spends more than 1 per cent. in real terms above inflation over that whole three-year period?

Mr. Straw: I will develop this point considerably in my remarks: the trend that we are following is similar to


that which was followed from 1994–95. For example, in 1995–96, expenditure on the police increased by 0.22 per cent. I am glad that—after the right hon. Gentleman gagged so much at a simple question about the date on which that budget was set—he has, at long last, admitted that his Government set the budget for the police service for 1997–98. Was he saying that, having set that budget before the election, they would have increased it after the election, had they won? Was that the point that he was trying to make?

Sir Norman Fowler: That was constantly done in respect of the second year, but—[Interruption.] Yes, of course it was. If the right hon. Gentleman does not know that, he does not know anything about how public spending was handled. His point is fascinating because he always goes for one or two years, but he refuses point blank to face the fact that, over the whole period of the Conservative Government, spending in real terms went up by more than 70 per cent. Does he—[Interruption.] If I may intervene in the Home Secretary's conversation, does he dispute that that is the case? The answer is that he does not dispute it; the fact is that he cannot.
The Government do not have the same financial priority for the police. Why cannot the Home Secretary come clean on this issue instead of wriggling, which is typical of him? He is not giving financial priority to the police and he knows it. The inevitable consequence is that expenditure on the police is being cut and the man responsible is this Home Secretary.

Sir Nicholas Lyell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that that cut is causing deep concern in the counties? In Bedfordshire, not only the police authority, but the chief constable has been moved to speak up because of the practical reductions faced by the police, which the Government disguise as 2 per cent. efficiency cuts.

Sir Norman Fowler: What I find despicable about this whole debate is the Government's inability to come clean about what they are doing. They are wriggling and wriggling and wriggling because, in reality, they are cutting and cutting and cutting, but cannot admit it. That explains why there are only two and a half people on the Labour Benches.

Sir David Madel: On the point made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Sir N. Lyell), is my right hon. Friend surprised that the average settlement is 2.7 per cent., yet all that Bedfordshire has been given is 0.8 per cent? Although the Minister of State has listened to us courteously, all that we have had is a Mona Lisa smile and no action.

Sir Norman Fowler: I correct myself; there are four Labour Back Benchers in the Chamber. My hon. Friend is entirely right; Bedfordshire is one of the areas that have been affected greatly.

Mr. Gerald Howarth: I hope that my right hon. Friend will not let the Home Secretary off the hook on the point about the 1997–98 budget. The Home

Secretary said that that budget was the responsibility of the previous Conservative Government, which is entirely true. Does my right hon. Friend accept that one of the bases on which the Labour party secured its mandate to govern from the British people was unquestioning acceptance of the spending priorities and targets set by the Conservative Government? It obtained office, in large measure, on the basis of that undertaking. Does he agree that it was open to the Labour Government—if they really believed in their support for law and order—to increase that budget when they came into office in 1997?

Sir Norman Fowler: Yes, that is exactly what I said. What I think is wrong, false and phoney about the Home Secretary's argument is that he uses figures and years selectively. He takes figures for one or two years and then tries to build up the Government's whole record on that period. If he uses the crime figures for that period to establish the Government's record, then surely to goodness he should use the police figures for the same period. I repeat that there was an average real—terms increase in spending of 3.3 per cent. a year under the previous Conservative Government. There is not the slightest prospect of this Government matching that, and they are not even attempting to do so.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. I remind the right hon. Gentleman that he should be addressing the Chair.

Sir Norman Fowler: I was about to turn round to do just that, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Angela Smith: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Sir Norman Fowler: May I continue?
There have been reductions in manpower in the Metropolitan police in London, in Sussex, West Yorkshire, Kent, Essex, Nottinghamshire and Hertfordshire, as well as other forces. The strength of the City of London force is now below its 1979 level. No one can seriously doubt where policy is pointing, and many forces are not even attempting to add to their strength. The most that they can do is to try to retain the strength that they have and, for many of them, that is proving unsuccessful.
It is not just police manpower that is affected: it is also the services provided. Police stations are being closed: not just those that are unused, but stations in busy areas such as Chislehurst and Biggin Hill. The Essex force is being forced to make economies and, as my hon. Friend the Member for South—West Bedfordshire (Sir D. Madel) said, there is a similar story in Bedfordshire, and the same applies to Cleveland.
The position is so bad that even the Liberal Democrats have woken up to what is happening. [HoN. MEMBERS: "Both the Liberal Democrats."] I am glad that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan) has woken up; he is 0.5 per cent. of his party present. Their spokesmen tour the country, and the leader of the Liberal Democrats—at least I think that he is still their leader—recently visited south Lakeland to express concern over the closures of Cumbrian police stations, as did the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Dr. Brand) last month.


The problem is that they have their photo opportunity and then forget to make any representations. As my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) has pointed out, he is the only person to have expressed any written concern to the Government about police station closures in Cumbria.

Mr. Tim Collins: My constituents are angry to find that petitions organised by Liberal Democrat councillors and the constant visits by Liberal Democrat MPs have not resulted in a single letter from a Liberal Democrat to the Home Office on this matter. Perhaps that is why only two of them are present in the Chamber at the moment.

Sir Norman Fowler: It would be unfair of me to knock the Liberal Democrats, but if provoked I will.

Mr. Michael Jack: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, in the Home Secretary's own county of Lancashire, police officers in Preston told me last week that not only are they under complement this year, but they are envisaging cuts in police numbers next year? Does he agree that the situation will go from bad to worse?

Sir Norman Fowler: My right hon. Friend typically puts his finger on a crucial point. We should be concerned about not just this financial year, but next year and the year after. Many chief constables say that they will do their best to struggle through this year, but if that continues to be the case next year and the year after, the consequences will be very serious.

Angela Smith: rose—

Mr. John Hayes: rose—

Sir Norman Fowler: I shall give way for the last time to my hon. Friend.

Mr. Hayes: Will my right hon. Friend add Lincolnshire to his list of areas where there are crises of policing? We have similar problems there.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the reason why so few Labour Members are present today—indeed, there are more civil servants here than Labour Back Benchers—is that they are acutely embarrassed, because they know that this problem applies to their constituencies and their counties? Only a couple of Liberal Democrats are here into the bargain.

Sir Norman Fowler: The same thing happened when we last debated the police grant. I think that half the Labour speeches actually opposed Government policy—although there was not much time, because the Minister of State spoke for 45 minutes. Had there been more time, we would have been able to hear more opposition.
My fear is the fear expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire. I am afraid that the situation will get worse. Chief constables tell me that they may struggle through this year—although they are in difficulties—but that there will be worse problems in the next two years.
What are the Government offering to replace what they are reducing? Well—as the Home Secretary will doubtless announce and reannounce in a moment—they are offering a number of schemes to "target" policing. The idea of hotspot policing comes from the United States, where it has been successful; but in the United States, schemes such as that and zero tolerance policing have been introduced at times when police strength has been radically increased. In New York, it has been increased by 7,000 in the last few years, and in the United States generally, there is a programme aimed at increasing it by 100,000. In that context, targeting makes a great deal of sense, because it is in addition to what is already being done. What our Government cannot do is introduce schemes of this kind as a substitute policy. They cannot introduce targeting and, at the same time, reduce the general strength of the police force.
The Government have another plan. They are encouraging the idea of a non-police patrol. Let me explain what that is, for the benefit of the Minister of State. The concept was explained last summer by the chief constable of Surrey, Mr. Blair.

Mr. Straw: No relation.

Sir Norman Fowler: I take the Home Secretary's word for that. Nevertheless, although there may be no family relationship, the extent to which the Prime Minister has embraced the concept prompts a number of questions.
According to Mr. Blair, two local authority patrols in bright red uniforms marked "Surrey police compliant", drawn from the welfare-to-work programme, will move around the high street, in radio contact with the police officer with direct responsibility for the area. I would have been inclined to laugh off the prospect, but next morning, The Guardian quoted the Home Secretary as saying that the chief constable's plans were "a real possibility". Since then, the Metropolitan police have been consulting on pilot schemes in London.
I believe that patrolling the streets of our towns and cities is essentially police work. I speak first and foremost from the public's point of view. The public want not only the reassurance conveyed by a police presence, but the knowledge that they are dealing with trained men and women who meet high standards, who know their own patch, who will act with common sense and sensitivity and who believe that authority does not result automatically from the uniform that they wear, but must be earned. That is what policing is all about, and that is why I say that community policing should be our priority—a priority that is underlined repeatedly by the Macpherson report.
The Home Secretary has replied by saying:
If you talk to the public they understand that you cannot have a police officer walking up and down their street all day and every day. You never had that. That was a myth about what happened in some golden age.
The right hon. Gentleman is right, but that is because he gave an example that he knew to be self-evidently absurd. There never was an age in which every street was constantly patrolled. There was, however, a time when there were more police patrols than there are today, and there was a time when chief constables did not have to envisage council-employed redcoats patrolling town centres.
Indeed, there was a time when the Home Secretary himself believed that all this was important. He says now that he cannot even express a view about police numbers, but back in 1995, he voted against a police grant order. He said then:
police services say they will have to cut police numbers."— [Official Report, 31 January 1995; Vol. 253, c. 962.]
Indeed, the Labour manifesto talked about getting more officers back on the beat.
I believe that the issues raised in this debate are of fundamental importance. The importance of trained police on the beat goes beyond even the reassurance that they give. The generally good relations between police and public in Britain depend on the regular meeting, day by day, of policemen and policewomen with members of the public. It would be an act of supreme folly if police were to become a service remote from the public they serve.
We cannot take that relationship for granted. We have to work at it constantly. Police patrolling may not hit the headlines in the same way in which crime hits the headlines, but it is vital in retaining public confidence.
I am genuinely concerned that the Government's policies are taking us in exactly the wrong direction. I am concerned that they have reduced their financial commitment. I am concerned that police numbers are falling and services are being reduced. I am concerned about their policy on non-police patrols. I am concerned—particularly after this debate—about the Government's complacency about what has happened. If, as I fear, the Government's policies undermine the strength of the police service, the public will not forgive them.

(Mr. Jack Straw): I beg to move, To leave out from "country;" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
notes that the previous administration's promises in 1992 and 1995 of an additional 6,000 police officers were never carried through and that police numbers instead fell; welcomes the additional £1.24 billion for the police service and the extra £400 million for the crime reduction programme which are to be provided over the next three years; supports the police in their crucial role in tackling crime and creating safer communities; and recognises the need for the police, as with other public services, to continue to improve efficiency and effectiveness and deliver best value in the interests of the whole country.
The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) started his speech with a tribute to Britain's police service, and I fully associate myself and my Government with that tribute. However, I crave his indulgence in not following him on the issues raised in the Lawrence report. He was not necessarily to know it when preparing his notes, but—as he and other hon. Members will now know from the business statement by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House—there will be a full day's debate on the Lawrence report on Monday 29 March. As I told the House when making my statement on 24 February, I shall publish, next week, a full statement providing our full response, recommendation by recommendation, so that hon. Members are better informed of our response well in advance of that debate.
Central to the claims made today by the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield was the claim that police numbers started to decline only after the previous

general election, and that that has been the responsibility only of the current Government. I should like to put the record straight. During both the 1970s and the 1980s, police numbers overall rose by 25,000. Although I should be happy to trade statistics—I should enjoy it—if the right hon. Gentleman wants to do so on the 1980s and very early 1990s, he should bear it in mind that the annual increase in the police service was just over 1,000, whereas the annual increase during the Labour Government of 1974–79 was 2,000.
The overall 25,000 increase stopped at the beginning of the 1990s. It did so because the then Conservative Government made a calculated decision to end the increase in police numbers. As in many similar decisions, however, the only thing that the previous Government did not do was to announce their decision. That is confirmed by the then Home Secretary, now Lord Baker, at page 450 of his memoirs. He said:
I found, however, that while several of my ministerial colleagues and Tory MPs supported the police in public, they were highly critical of them in private. There was impatience, if not anger, that although we had spent 87 per cent. more in real terms since 1979, and had increased police numbers … there had still been a substantial rise in crime. 'Where is the value for money?' asked my colleagues.
I had even heard Margaret Thatcher criticize the management and the leadership of the police.
Lord Baker went on to describe the negotiations that he was having with the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury, David Mellor, who said that his time as a Minister at the Home Office had not
turned him into a friend of the police.
He said that Mr. Mellor had said of police—words that I should never use:
They are overpaid, we've thrown money at them, and we have the highest level of crime in our history.
That marked a clear decision by the previous Government in the early 1990s to stabilise expenditure on the police and to preside over a decline in numbers. In 1993, there were 128,300 police officers. By March 1997—only weeks before the general election—that number had fallen by 1,132. By March 1998, it had fallen to 126,856 and, by September 1998—the latest date for which figures are available—the overall figure had fallen to 126,500.
What makes this debate such a spectacular own goal for the Conservatives is that all that decline took place during the period of budgets that they set. In 1998–99, I have presided over a higher rate of increase in spending than that was originally earmarked by the Conservative Government.

Sir Norman Fowler: The right hon. Gentleman said that spending, as well as manpower, was stabilised in the 1990s. Will he now take the opportunity to correct that reply and to agree that in 1991–92 there was a 6.3 per cent. real-terms increase in spending, in 1992–93 there was a 3.6 per cent. increase, in 1993–94 there was a 2.1 per cent. increase, in 1994–95 spending was stable, in 1995–96 there was an increase of 2.6 per cent. and in 1996–97 there was an increase of 2.5 per cent? In five out of six years there were substantial real increases in spending. If the right hon. Gentleman is puzzled, he should consult the House of Commons Library statistics department.

Mr.Straw: I was looking puzzled because the right hon. Gentleman's run of figures does not square


with mine. We can exchange figures later. I am interested in arguing from the figures. I accept that, as Kenneth Baker said, real-terms expenditure on the police rose by 87 per cent. until the early 1990s, and police numbers reached their peak in 1993. However, the issue is whether the increase in spending had fed into police numbers.
Extraordinarily, some hon. Members whose areas are receiving large increases in police budgets for next year, such as the 6.1 per cent. increase for Derbyshire, are complaining about forward spending under the plans for which we are responsible. I do not remember hearing Conservative Members complaining about the huge decrease in Metropolitan police numbers over which they presided. It was a decrease not of 200 or 300 or 1.000; 2,000 Metropolitan officers were cut between 1992 and the time of the most recent figures—all under budgets that were set or earmarked by previous Home Secretaries. The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis expects numbers next year to be within 75 of the numbers this year.
Those are the facts. The previous Government made a covert decision not to increase police numbers, but they then made a public promise to increase police numbers—a promise that they comprehensively broke. Sometimes I weep for the Conservatives, because, if only they had consulted us, we could have told them that the least that they should do is make promises on which they will not be completely exposed within a few months.
In their 1992 manifesto, the Conservatives promised to increase police numbers by 1,000 officers. Did they? Of course, they did not. They were 400 short. Having broken that promise, the then Prime Minister—never one to break the habit of a lifetime—decided to utter another promise in 1995, which he then went on to break. At the Conservative party conference in 1995, he said:
we have found the resources over the next three years to put, not 500 but an extra 5,000 police officers on the beat.
What happened? Was the increase 5,000? Was it 500? No, it was zero. Numbers went down. In the period when the Conservatives promised 5,000 extra officers, numbers went down by 470—and Conservative Members wonder why they lost the last election, and why they completely lost the plot on law and order.

Mr. David Drew: I was genuinely intrigued that the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) did not mention police pensions in his speech. Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the significant problems with the budgetary situation is the pensions overhang?

Mr. Straw: I agree, and a large number of unexploded time bombs—well past their set date—were left in the drawer of the desk that I inherited from my predecessor. The Conservatives deliberately decided not to publish a review of police pensions, even though they knew that action had to be taken.
The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield made a serious point when he said that there had been some increase in real spending in the 1990s, and he implied that that should have fed its way into an increase in police numbers. However, he omitted to say that, in the Police and Magistrates Courts Act 1994—for which he voted—the powers of the then Home Secretary to set police

numbers were removed. My predecessor as Home Secretary, the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), said:
In future the number of constables will be a matter for local decision … It is not a matter for me."—[Official Report, 26 April 1994; Vol. 242, c. 113.]
The previous Government said that they had no power to determine police numbers—and then, only months later, they were promising to do just that.
That is what is so incredible about the Conservatives' promises. They promised 5,000 officers—a promise which, by law, they prevented themselves from ever meeting. Rarely has there been such a reckless set of promises made by any party—even one as intent on defeat as the Conservative party.

Sir Norman Fowler: I am interested to explore what the Home Secretary is saying. On 31 January 1995, he led his party to vote against a police grant which was substantially greater than any provided by the Labour Government, including the last one. One of his reasons for that was that he was getting complaints from chief police officers that numbers were going down around the country. Is he saying now that that was the wrong decision, or that he should not have used that argument to justify the Labour party's voting against the police grant?

Mr. Straw: We were justified at that time because, as my figures show, there was virtually no increase at all in 1995–96—only 0.2 per cent. Also, we were not facing both ways on public spending. There were careful discussions within the shadow Cabinet about our pledges, and their public spending implications, before any of us were allowed to speak on them.
The right hon. Gentleman has implied at the Dispatch Box that there will be significant increases in spending on the police. I wish to refer to the four letters that I wrote to him in October and November, asking about his party's pledges on police spending, and on public spending overall. One of many compliments that I am happy to pay the right hon. Gentleman is that he is an assiduous replier to letters. Indeed, I can think of some occasions when he has replied by return to letters even from me.

Sir Norman Fowler: Once.

Mr. Straw: No, on other occasions. Whatever else may be said about him, the charge that he sits on letters is not one that can be made against him. In an article in the Police Review, the right hon. Gentleman was reported as saying that
the Government lost out on the opportunity it had to make savings on its welfare budget … which could have been transferred to the police".
On 7 October, I wrote to him, asking which bits of the welfare budget he was proposing to cut to transfer the money to the police. Nothing happened. He broke his usual habit of politeness and refused to send me a reply.
On 2 November, I wrote the right hon. Gentleman another letter, to the effect of, "Norman,"—I call him Norman—"could I have a reply?" The next week—the week of the public spending plans—the shadow Chancellor dismissed our public spending plans for the next three years, including our police spending plans,


as "reckless". He used that word, which made for some difficulties for the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield.
To clarify the matter, I wrote to the right hon. Gentleman and said:
As this increase"—
of £1.24 billion—
is part of that 'reckless' package of public expenditure, I should be grateful if you would let me know if you are now opposing it.
Silence followed that letter, too. On 25 November—I thought that, although we are an efficient Government, something might have happened with the post—I wrote to him and personally delivered the letter. I did not want there to be any doubt that he had received it. What has happened between 25 November and 18 March? Absolute silence.

Sir Norman: Fowler rose—

Mr. Straw: Ah, we have a reply.

Sir Norman Fowler: The pressure is obviously getting to the right hon. Gentleman. He is forgetting replies. I replied to Straw—as I call him—on the Floor of the House, during Question Time. I drew to his attention my record on social security. Is that beginning to twitch a little memory bud? I happen to believe in the importance of the House of Commons. I know that the right hon. Gentleman is a lovely National Union of Students man and loves shoving letters and challenges everywhere. Why does not he listen to what is said in the House of Commons?

Mr. Straw: I have not had a reply. I was anticipating that the right hon. Gentleman would tell me how his plans to increase spending on the police squared with the shadow Chancellor's very clear statement that our overall spending plans, including spending on the police of £1.24 billion, were reckless, but he cannot do it because he knows that he has been silenced. He suggests that we have lost the reply, but that is not remotely the case. Never has the right hon. Gentleman replied to the point on the Floor of the House. If he has, let him produce the Hansard report to that effect.
The right hon. Gentleman well knows that one of the ways in which each of us is rightly put on the spot, whether in opposition or in government—he has experience of both—is by the exchange of letters. He also knows that it is wholly discourteous not to reply to letters, especially in four times of asking. Which benefits would he cut in order to transfer the money to the police? How does he square his promise to increase police spending with the shadow Chancellor's clear dismissal of our increases as reckless?

Sir Norman Fowler: I have given my reply. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I gave the Home Secretary my reply weeks ago.
The right hon. Gentleman has been speaking for 20 minutes and has not said a word about the Government's policy on the police. It will be noted by

police forces throughout the country that he is not addressing the problems of the police service, but is back to his old NUS debating days.

Mr. Straw: What I have done—it is for others to judge how effectively—is to point out that what the Conservatives are implying about police numbers bears no relationship to the facts. Police numbers went down in each of their last seven years in government. No one in the country believes what the Opposition are saying about police numbers because they know that the promises—if they are promises—that the right hon. Gentleman is making from the Dispatch Box to increase public spending are wholly undermined by the shadow Chancellor. That is the simple truth.

Mr. Bruce Grocott: May I suggest that we could get around the apparent problems with the postal service to everyone's satisfaction if, during my right hon. Friend's speech, one of his colleagues on the Front Bench would write a letter to the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) and physically pass it across? By the end of the debate, we could expect a written reply.

Mr: Straw: We look forward to the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield letting us have the Hansard reference for his reply so that my hon. Friend the Minister of State can deal with it in his winding-up speech. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will ensure that that is done, because it is extraordinary that, after all the questions, he has still not been able to say where the money will come from.

Mr. Jack: Before we move on from the subject of correspondence, will the Home Secretary help me with an item of correspondence that I have received from the chief constable of Lancashire? She tells me that she got a 1.9 per cent. settlement, but she needs 3.9 per cent. to carry on. She has used her efficiency saving of 2 per cent. to bridge the gap, but, because of requirements under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 for reasons of new communications and information technology, she needs another £2 million. What do I say in my reply to the chief constable—in the interests of the safety of the Home Secretary, of course—to enable her police force to do its job?

Mr. Straw: The right hon. Gentleman was a Minister at the Home Office at the time the policy was changed, so he knows all about it. I have a high regard for the chief constable of Lancashire, but the overall increase in police spending is 2.4 per cent. That is what has been agreed by the police authority, not the 1.9 per cent. to which the right hon. Gentleman refers. The police service in Lancashire accepts that it will have to make efficiency savings, and I believe they can be made alongside an improvement in output. That is the challenge for the police service. We are increasing resources significantly, including £1.24 billion over the next three years. That is 2.7 per cent. next year, 2.8 per cent. the following year and 4 per cent. the year after that. Those increases in central Government funding will be supplemented by money from council tax payers, and, overall, budgets are set to rise by 3 per cent. for the majority of police


authorities and by 3.6 per cent. for those in the shire county areas, from which most Conservative Members come.

Mr. Gerald Howarth: Are those figures in real or cash terms?

Mr. Straw: They are in cash terms. One of the reforms of the previous Government was to talk in cash terms and not in the funny money of real terms.
The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield referred to his time at the Department of Social Security. I was one of the few people who bought a copy of the right hon. Gentleman's memoirs. I was able to do so, being an impecunious member of the Cabinet, because it was remaindered.

Sir Norman Fowler: That is an old joke.

Mr. Straw: It is a good joke. They were down to 50p. One of the points that the right hon. Gentleman made—it is a fair point—was about the need to obtain efficiencies from the health and social services. He said:
You can argue about the amount of resources devoted to health but what you cannot sensibly argue about is that the resources devoted to health care should be used to maximum effect.
We were behind the Conservative party on the issue of efficiency in local government and public services, and I am willing to say that.

Sir Norman Fowler: Labour did not say that at the time.

Mr. Straw: No, but we should have done. What I find remarkable about Conservative Members is that they do not apply the clear lessons about efficiency in every other public service to the police. Conservative Members seem to imply that the police services have reached some level of perfection in efficiency, when everybody in the police services, as well as outside, knows that not to be the case. Lincolnshire has been mentioned; its chief constable is restructuring top tier management and merging some divisions to enhance community policing. In the Metropolitan police area, which I know best, they have a target of reducing sickness per officer by 11 per cent. in 1998–99 and a further 10 per cent. in 1999–2000.
Across the country, reducing police sickness levels to the level of the median—not even below it—will save £35 million, which would be equivalent to the cost of 1,100 police officers on operational duties. The simple truth is that all the evidence—from the Audit Commission, Her Majesty's chief inspectorate of constabulary and local police authorities—shows that there is no direct relationship between the inputs and the outputs of the police service. Under the Conservative Government, a number of police forces received a reduction in funding, but achieved an increase in output, and the reverse is always the case.
The Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee—a Conservative—was correct when he said that there is an enormous variation in the performance of police forces. We are trying to ensure that the level of each is raised to the level of the best. There is a clear challenge on efficiency savings, and I do not resile from it.
Quite a proportion of police spending relates to non-pay matters. People who know the police service will know that a number of police officers are not engaged in front-line duties. We must release those officers for such duties. In our manifesto, we said that we sought to put more officers back on the beat, and we are doing that by, for example, reforming the Crown Prosecution Service and dealing with delays in the courts.
The debate about police numbers has become rather abstract. One reason for that is that the boundary is shifting constantly between staff who are available to fight crime as uniformed or warranted officers or as civilians. It shifted under the previous Government, and it has shifted under this Government. It is crucial that we judge the effectiveness of the police service—just as the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield judged all other public services when he was in government—not by scoring debating points on inputs, but by looking at outputs, setting clear performance benchmarks and judging those services.

Mr. Hayes: The right hon. Gentleman speaks of benchmarks, but will he concede that they should not be just reactive or crime related? At present, police funding is largely to do with the level and nature of crime. If he gets the benchmarks wrong, he will exacerbate the problems to which he referred.

Mr. Straw: I agree with all that the hon. Gentleman says. We seek to make the police service and the partnerships involved in dealing with crime more proactive. That is why we are putting £400 million into crime reduction, for example. The police are heavily involved in those partnerships, and it is possible to move from being reactive to being proactive.

Sir David Madel: rose—

Mr. Straw: I shall give way in a moment.
Let me give an example: if an area has a high incidence of crime and disorder, the police can firefight it day by day with response vehicles, but the way to solve it is to find out who is committing those crimes and to jail them.

Mr. Hayes: rose—

Mr. Vernon Coaker: rose—

Mr. Straw: I promised to give way to the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Sir D. Madel), and I shall later give way to, as they say in pantomime, the one behind me.

Sir David Madel: The benchmarks that the Home Secretary wants the police to achieve are met in Bedfordshire, and partnership is improving. However, the population of the county is increasing all the time. Why is Bedfordshire's settlement so incredibly low? Even at this late hour, can the Home Secretary help us?

Mr. Straw: It is a timeless verity that, under the police spending formula, some forces gain and some do less well. No one should accuse me of favouritism, because Lancashire has also done less well than other forces, and so has Bedfordshire. We have considered Bedfordshire's


case carefully and spending per head of population is broadly in line, to within 50p, with the shire county average, even taking into account the fact that the increase in spend in the past year has not been as much as the chief constable or the police authority would have wished.

Mr. Coaker: My right hon. Friend remarked earlier that police numbers are not the only important thing. They are important, of course, but, if we are to reduce crime, the partnerships created by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 will be important. Local people will work with the police to reduce crime so that everyone is involved. If we simply reduce the debate to a question of how many police are on the streets, we shall not tackle the causes of crime. We might feel good, and we might have a good debating point, but we would do nothing to make our communities safer.

Mr. Straw: Chief constables, among others, have sought the freedom to decide how police money should be spent. We are all grown-ups here, and we all know that people will argue for more in the run-up to any Budget settlement. In opposition, I quickly learned when I drew the short straw—[HON. MEMBERS: "Short straw!"] Some might prefer to call the position of Labour local government spokesman a poisoned chalice. I remember that, when I was local government spokesman in the halcyon days of 1983 to 1985—when we dealt much more with the enemy behind us than with the Government in front of us—local authorities, and mainly Labour ones, used to scream and shout every year at Budget time about how services would collapse if the Budget went ahead, but, hey presto, it never happened.
The police want flexibility. They have used the flexibility that the previous Government granted with our support in 1994 to make sensible, rational decisions about whether to put more money into, for example, having more uniformed, warranted police officers or civilian staff, or into more information technology and better equipment. It is far better that they have that flexibility.
The final point made by the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield related to non-police patrol. I looked perplexed as he spoke because I remembered a debate in February 1996 on non-police patrol. In those days, we did not call it non-police patrol; it was the private security industry. Even under the Conservative Government, there were twice as many people in the so-called non-police patrol—the private security industry—as in the police service. The number increased substantially under the Conservatives, but I make no complaint about that.
A large number of people who were not police officers were involved in patrolling and public safety duties, as there are today. A report from the Select Committee on Home Affairs said that the private security industry had to be regulated. During an Opposition day debate, we moved a motion to that effect, but it was voted down by the right hon. Gentleman and his party. As ever, however, the right hon. Gentleman faced both ways: he went through the Lobby to oppose what we said, but stood up in the House to support it.
The right hon. Gentleman may have forgotten what he said, but, for the benefit of the wider public, I have

it here. He first criticised me for saying that we could not have a police officer on every street corner. He said:
The implication for the public is that there will never be, under any Government in any circumstances, enough regular police to investigate every burglary and house break-in that happens in our great cities, such as London or Birmingham. That has not happened in the past"—
there was no praying in aid of a golden age from the right hon. Gentleman then—
and there is no reason to believe that it will happen in the future.
He went on to say:
We may regret that, but we should learn a lesson from it …we must all learn to take crime prevention seriously".
We have accepted his advice, and we are taking crime prevention seriously. Today, he is saying that non-police patrol is some sort of left-wing plot or a figment of the imagination of the Liberal Democrats. He certainly says that it is nothing to do with him. But in 1996, he said:
Too often in the past 20 years, policy makers have not recognised what the private security industry can and should do in a modern society. It can help the citizen and the company to prevent crime by guarding premises, by supplying alarms and by handling cash in transit. But the private security industry's role goes beyond that and it is equally sensible to consider the duties carried out by the police and prison officers and ask whether those roles can be performed by the private security industry."—[Official Report, 13 February 1996; Vol. 271, c. 887–88.]
What Mr. Ian Blair is saying now is no different from what the right hon. Gentleman said then.

Sir Norman Fowler: The Home Secretary is being absurd. What I was saying was utterly different. I challenge the right hon. Gentleman to give any quotation of mine in which I advocated using the private security industry to patrol the streets. I simply have not said that. In the quotation that he gave, I was referring to the movement of remand prisoners and other such matters. Whatever he says, I do not support the private security industry patrolling the streets as a replacement for the police. I have never supported that, and I have made several speeches on the subject. We are not even talking about the private security industry; we are talking about local authorities. Mr. Blair is talking about local authorities.

Mr. Straw: I can only answer by reading one sentence:
But the private security industry's role goes beyond that and it is equally sensible to consider the duties carried out by the police and prison officers and ask whether those roles can be performed by the private security industry."—[Official Report, 13 February 1996; Vol. 271, c. 887.]
As for local authorities, which are in the vanguard of so-called non-police patrol—

Sir Norman Fowler: rose—

Mr. Straw: No, I shall not give way; I am answering the right hon. Gentleman's question.
Those local authorities that are in the vanguard of non-police patrol are not new Labour but old Tory local authorities, namely Westminster and Wandsworth, and I commend them. Those authorities sensibly realise that there are complementary roles for so-called non-police patrol—whether undertaken by local authorities or by private security industries under contract—and the police service. That has always been the case. What the right


hon. Gentleman said three years ago was wise and I hope that he will support our White Paper on the private security industry, when my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Home Office publishes it.

Mr. Bob Russell: The past is the past. May we now deal with the present and the future? The shadow Home Secretary said that he is opposed to the privatisation of the bobby on the beat. Will the Home Secretary assure us that he, too, is opposed to the privatisation of the bobby on the beat and that Group 4 will not be patrolling our streets?

Mr. Straw: Of course I am opposed to the privatisation of the bobby on the beat, and I want to make that absolutely clear. The police service must be directly delivered. However, I must also make it clear that, as we speak, throughout the country in Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat areas, members of Group 4, Securicor and many other private security firms are, for example, patrolling so-called private shopping areas, and quite rightly too. That complements the work of the police; it does not detract from that work, but assists the police in preventing and detecting crime. Instead of suggesting that that practice does not exist, has not existed and should never exist, it is crucial to accept that it is a reality and to work out ways in which we can improve it, not least by the regulation of the service.

Sir Norman Fowler: I intervene again only to say that the right hon. Gentleman is misleading the House if he is suggesting that I advocate, or have advocated, the use of private security firms or local authorities to replace the police in patrolling duties. I have not done that during the 30 years in which I have taken an interest in police matters. I deeply resent the fact that the right hon. Gentleman is, as usual, trying to play the person, rather than make the argument.

Mr. Straw: If that is the right hon. Gentleman's position, I accept his assurance. I was not misleading anyone; I was merely reading the words from the record and giving them their ordinary and natural meaning.
The Labour Government came to power determined to reduce crime and the fear of crime. The police are the first to say that they cannot tackle crime on their own; local communities have a crucial role to play. The Crime and Disorder Act will strengthen those local partnerships. The Government made no promises on police numbers; at the election, we promised to relieve the police of unnecessary bureaucratic burdens to get more officers back on the beat, and we are doing just that, as I have already explained, by streamlining criminal justice procedures, reforming the Crown Prosecution Service and improving police efficiency.
Our aim is to make people feel safer and to ensure that the chance of their becoming victims of crime is reduced. Efficient, well-targeted use of police resources is the best way to achieve that. The public know that that is now our aim; they also know that we are intent on delivering it. That is why they so comprehensively supported our law and order agenda at the election and rejected the Conservatives.

Mr. Richard Allan: I apologise to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and to the House for being unable to stay until the end of the debate; I have to attend the Special Standing Committee on the Immigration and Asylum Bill at 3 pm. That Committee is a procedural innovation that is proving popular, perhaps more so than Opposition day debates.
I should like to associate the Liberal Democrats with the comments praising the work of our police forces all over the country. As community-based politicians, we are immensely proud of the essential, important and successful work carried out by our community-based police service. In large part, that service commands the respect of the community through a tradition of policing by consent, which we want to continue. It is in that light that we want to talk about police numbers.
We regret that we cannot support the Conservative motion and have tabled an amendment giving our view on police numbers. Although we agree with some of the sentiments in the latter part of the Conservative motion, it contains no apology for their period in government and we believe that a little humility around the kitchen table would be in order when discussing police numbers. At the same time, we are critical of the Government's view on the matter and are unable to support their amendment.
Much of the argument seems to be about two key judgments. The first is whether size matters in the police service and the second is whether the Home Secretary is responsible for that. There is an analogy to be drawn with class sizes: not every class of 30 pupils is automatically better taught or more successful than a class of 40. However, the Government seem to have accepted that, in general, size does matter in respect of class sizes and that more teachers produce a better output. We argue strongly that similar considerations must apply to the police. Although a direct correlation cannot be proved in every force between an increase in the number of police officers and the success of that force, common sense suggests that a larger police force will generally lead to better results and a smaller police force will generally lead to less good results.
In respect of whether the Home Secretary is responsible for police numbers, he has correctly referred to the technical legal position. It is interesting to hear Conservative Members, who were responsible for the legislation devolving responsibility to chief police officers, complain that the Home Secretary has not mandated police numbers. However, just as on class sizes the Government did not hide behind local education authorities' responsibility, but accepted that there is a direct correlation between the funds given to LEAs and the class sizes in individual boroughs, so the Home Secretary could give strong indications, and the funds to back them up, on police numbers, which could result in an increase in police numbers. On the other hand, if he gives no indication that that is his priority and there are no corresponding resources, there will be a fall in police numbers.
As the Home Secretary points out, the Conservatives made some specific commitments. He left us to guess whether those commitments had been met, but Liberal Democrat and Labour Members know exactly what happened because, when the Conservatives were in power, we spent much time attacking them for the


faults to which he referred. It is interesting to hear different arguments from Labour Members now that they sit on the Government Benches, which suggest that they no longer have the same interest in police numbers as they had when they were in opposition. When the Conservatives were in power, Labour's view clearly was that size did matter.
While they were in opposition, Labour Members were clever in not committing themselves to increasing the numbers of police officers, but we believe that they gave the clear impression that they would do so. They strongly criticised the Tories for falling police numbers and their carefully worded manifesto stated that they would
relieve the police of unnecessary bureaucratic burdens to get more officers back on the beat.
That allows them the get-out clause that there was no absolute commitment. However, the public expected the slogan, "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime", to mean more police officers, not fewer.

Angela Smith: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, especially as the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) resisted my attempts to intervene. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that Labour's criticism of the Conservative Government was of hypocrisy, because the Conservatives constantly argued that they were providing more police officers, but failed to do so?

Mr. Allan: I am content to accept that Labour's argument was about the hypocrisy of the Conservatives. Liberal Democrats also made the same criticism, which was levelled at an open goal created by the former Prime Minister, who set up that huge target but stepped aside and watched police numbers fall. However, at that time, when the public heard Labour's spokespeople calling for greater numbers of police or criticising the Conservative Government for allowing the numbers to fall, they understood that a Labour Government would not allow the same thing to happen. During the 18 months from 31 March 1997 until the production of the latest figures, there has been a fall of 781 officers in England and Wales. Since the election, 25 out of 43 police forces have faced cuts in the number of officers. The Government could have made that a priority if they had wanted to.

Mr. Nick Hawkins: While the hon. Gentleman is giving the House and the country a history lesson, would he care to go a little further back to when the Conservative Government first came to power in 1979? Police morale was at an all-time low and the police were threatening national strikes. Police morale was improved only by the Conservatives' commitment to provide, from 1979 throughout their period in government, a proper payment structure and proper support for the police. Prior to 1979—I know that the hon. Gentleman was very young then—the Liberal party was as bad as the Labour party for attacking the police.

Mr. Allan: I am interested to hear history lessons, but I am not sure whether I wish to explore the boom and bust in police morale from the Callaghan Government in the 1970s onwards. That may not be germane to this debate.

Mr. Paul Tyler: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. It is only fair, having taken

interventions from the Government and Opposition sides, that he should now take one from his own Benches. Unlike the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins)—he used to represent Blackpool, but I cannot remember where else he went on his chicken run—I was a Member of Parliament in 1974. I recall how the Liberal party strongly supported efforts to improve police morale by ensuring that the police were paid properly. However, it is time for the Government to recognise that two wrongs do not make a right. The previous Government's failure in this area—they failed disastrously, as I know only too well because I was a member of a police authority for many years during the period of Conservative rule—is immaterial. We are trying this afternoon to identify what this Government will do about the situation that they inherited.

Mr. Allan: My hon. Friend makes a valid point: we need to look across the spectrum of policing and other related areas.
The introduction of non-police officers is an important consideration. Civilianisation programmes have been mentioned in discussing how far events have moved and the relevance of police officers. Police forces are recruiting more civilian officers to free front-line police officers from bureaucracy and time-consuming paperwork. We support that approach, which I hope is welcomed on both sides of the House. However, that does not explain why 10 forces have seen a reduction in their civilian staff since the general election. Seven forces have seen a fall in the number of both civilian and police officers, and that combined reduction must affect the impact of those police forces.
We accept that there is more to tackling crime than police numbers, but our communities will not feel secure unless we get those numbers right. The Metropolitan police have been mentioned as a case in point. There is no doubt that they have faced the brunt of recent cuts. Since the general election, the Metropolitan police have lost 571 officers and 1,460 civilian staff—a 10.8 per cent. reduction. It is widely expected that that trend will continue, with recruitments not matching retirement levels. The Home Secretary said that Metropolitan police numbers will be within 75 of their current total. However, we must ask: 75 in which direction? The Home Secretary's careful wording suggests that the force will be 75 officers down—there would have been a bigger hurrah if he had announced an increase of 75.
It is a crucial time for the Metropolitan police: they must recruit more officers, particularly from the ethnic communities in response to the Macpherson report. The downward trend in recruitment makes it harder for the force to achieve the targets that the Home Secretary will set. Figures published last week by the Home Office in response to a parliamentary question tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) show that the number of officers in local divisions of the Met is falling even faster than the headline total.
The total figures show that, in an 18-month period, the number of officers fell by 571. However, the total for local divisions is 1,208 for the past two years. While the Met has lost 31 officers on average every month, the local divisions of the Met have lost 50 officers a month. That suggests that front-line policing is suffering as a result of the cuts.
The Library has produced some useful analysis of police funding over the lifetime of this Parliament. I would like to examine the Government's record in this Parliament rather than their inheritance from the Conservatives. We criticised at the time of the election—and have continued to criticise ever since—the Government's decision to maintain Conservative spending plans. The Government repeat headline figures, and they have a wonderful knack of rolling three years' spending into one. The comprehensive spending review cited some very large numbers which become significantly smaller when we divide them by three and take account of the fact that they are announced several times for added impact.
According to our analysis of the comprehensive spending review, total police funding will increase by 2 per cent. in real terms—that must be a good thing. However, over the lifetime of this Parliament, funding for police will increase by only 0.01 per cent. in real terms. In 1998–99, the police suffered real-terms cuts for only the second time in 20 years. The previous Government can take credit for their average real-terms increase of 6 per cent. in police funding. Potential police numbers under this Government are causing great concern, as is the increasing cost of police pensions, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew). We still see no ultimate resolution to that problem, which will continue to drain resources from front-line policing.
As the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir Norman Fowler) mentioned, the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Police Authorities have been critical of the Government. The Association of Police Authorities went further in describing the kind of struggle that police authorities are facing. It said:
all authorities will be walking a tightrope in balancing front line police numbers with the need to invest in the very latest technology.
That is an area of critical concern. I recently visited the National Criminal Intelligence Service, and there is no doubt that a force such as that needs the latest technology as much as do the shire and the metropolitan forces on the ground. Police forces need sophisticated technology of a kind never seen before, which adds to the pressure. We do not want our forces having to choose between purchasing essential new technology and fulfilling their role of patrolling our streets. The police must have sufficient resources to carry out both of those essential functions, as well as the new functions—the partnership arrangements—under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, which Liberal Democrats welcome.
The Government offer efficiency gains as the solution. We think that some efficiency gains can be made. We do not seek to protect the police by saying that no efficiency gains can be made. However, we do not believe that such gains will overcome the need for increased front-line policing. The role of the police is significant in that equation. The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield referred to the increased number of police officers required to support the community policing programme in New York. The chief police officer in New York, William Bratton, has made it clear that partnership community policing is the way forward. I point to the fact that New York now has twice as many officers per head as London, and that the London figure is continuing to fall. [Interruption.]
We believe that the future lies with community policing and with providing sufficient funding to enable police forces to recruit an extra 6,000 officers. We believe that, in an era of resource accounting, it is very clear that the kind of money required—perhaps £120 million—to fund 6,000 additional police officers would reap rewards such as a lower crime rate and less damage to people in the community—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but there is far too much noise coming from the other Benches.

Mr. Allan: We believe that, with that sort of investment—which would pay for 6,000 new officers—there would be significant rewards. That is not a waste of expenditure and it is not spending in a revenue sense, but an investment that would be returned through savings made elsewhere. That is the kind of spending that the Government, if they had the will, could have made this year, and which they should make in future years. We will continue to press for them to fund community policing. Every community needs an officer who is well known and with whom everyone can interact.

Mr. Tyler: I am a great admirer of my hon. Friend. Does he recall that, in the previous Parliament, it was calculated that just £1 extra per year from each adult citizen would be required to increase manpower to the level that the chief constables felt was necessary in order to police this country properly? The Conservative Government failed to do that, but such is the nature of the task.

Mr. Allan: There was publicity about that at that time. The public are willing to provide funds for safer communities and we, as a party, are not scared to tell people up front that if they want decent public services, they will be required to pay for them. We are prepared to stand on our platform and go before the electorate to tell them that if they want community policing, it will cost them. We believe that they would choose to support that proposal in overwhelming numbers. They will not support the cuts in the police services which will come about as a result of the total settlements from this Parliament and the financial situation inherited from the previous Government.
Our final concern is that even if chief police officers had extra resources, it is questionable that they would be able to make the necessary recruitments to their force. We are extremely concerned to note that the number of applicants to the Metropolitan police dropped from more than 7,000 in 1995–96 to fewer than 5,000 in 1997–98. Parliamentary answers from the Home Office reveal that the number is still falling. I hope that the Minister, when responding in his usual informative way, will state whether the police service will be able to recruit extra officers if they can make the efficiency gains that he hopes for. I assume that he believes that those gains will lead to increased police numbers.

Angela Smith: Having listened to the debate so far, I believe that hon. Members have become obsessed with numbers. I often have a great deal of sympathy with comments made by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan), but listening to his contribution today, I wondered how the 1p increase in income tax will pay for all the Liberal Democrats' commitments, including extra spending on the police.
We have missed the point of this debate on the strength of the police force, which is how the police relate to the community and how safe the community feels. The issue is not numbers, but the perception of crime in the community.
When I intervened on the hon. Member for Hallam, I made the point that the Conservatives have, once again, misunderstood us. Our criticism of them, which we shall continue to make, is that when they were in government, they harped on about increasing police numbers. At the Conservative party conference, the former Prime Minister made the hasty statement that the Government would increase police numbers by 5,000. As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said, they had already taken away the power that would have allowed them to do so, but they made a promise that they could not keep. That was hypocritical and misled people, particularly because the promise was made at a time of rising crime.
Crime has continued to rise. The way to deal with that is to involve the police in community policing. I am pleased that in Basildon we have had a crime prevention strategy and a partnership since 1990.

Mr. Bob Russell: Is the hon. Lady saying that her constituents, who live in the same county as my constituents, welcome next month's cut of 135 police officers and the disposal of a entire motorcycle fleet?

Angela Smith: I understand why the hon. Gentleman won the recent golden anorak award from Tribune newspaper, but I urge him to be patient regarding my comments and the delivery of the anorak.
I want to emphasise the importance of community safety partnerships, which were mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker). We are all grown-ups, so I can hazard the comment that it is not the size of the police force that matters, but how we use that police force in the community. The previous Government refused to deal with that problem and to make community safety partnerships statutory. As I said, we have had such a partnership in Basildon since 1990. It deals not only with crime, but with the fear of crime.
I have spent much time in my constituency talking to youth groups, women's groups and pensioners. The fear of crime is the one issue that they all mention on every occasion. That has nothing to do with crime statistics. It relates to how they perceive their place in the community and how they think crime could affect them. There has been a distinct change in Government policy to deal with the fear of crime, which is leading to greater community safety.
I pay tribute to the Basildon community safety partnership, which has won numerous prizes for its work. The previous high sheriff of Essex, which includes the constituency of the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Russell), said that Basildon was one of the best areas

in the county and gave it several awards. Basildon residents do not normally take kindly to men who dress up in tights and frilly shirts and have silver buckles on their shoes, but on that occasion, we took the high sheriff to our hearts and appreciated the work that he did with us on community safety.
The booklet produced by the partnership deals with four aspects of community safety and involved the police and the local council. It considers personal safety, property safety, business safety and community safety. John Robb, the chief executive of the district council, referred in the booklet to
initiatives aimed at reducing crime and increasing the quality of our lives.
He made the point that the quality of our lives is directly affected by how we perceive crime in our community.
Superintendent Dennis Sheppard, divisional commander for Basildon, said that crime affects us all. The previous Government would have been wise to take on board his following firm point:
If we are to further reduce crime and 'Build a Better Basildon' then each and every one of us has a part to play. Only by working together will we impact upon crime and thereby improve peoples' quality of life.
The success of our Community Safety Partnership demonstrates what can be achieved when people work together towards a common goal.
Later in my remarks, I shall give examples of how effective that work has been.
I have been impressed with the personal dedication of the officers, from the council and the police, involved in the partnership. Ken Venables of Basildon council and Ray Williams of Basildon police have a unique working relationship. I commend it to other authorities, who could use it as a model of how to reduce crime and the fear of crime in their community.
The strength of that relationship lies in the way in which the police have developed the role of community safety officers. Brett Mercer, who covers my area, is highly regarded in the community and has become a friend to its people. Officers such as Di Capon and Darren Griffiths, who work in another part of my constituency, have made the effort to get to know the community and individuals know that they can contact them.
I was recently contacted by petition by the residents of a local estate who are concerned about what is often called petty crime, although that is the wrong name for it. It includes vandalism and breaking into and damaging cars. We should never underestimate the impact of such crime on the lives of individuals. My response was to write to the police and ask what they could do about it. I asked if I could examine the policing records for that area and discuss the matter. They responded not only by discussing the problems with me, but by asking for the names and addresses of residents who would like to talk to them. They are prepared to meet residents, deal with their complaints and discuss how they can help. That is a significant step forward in community relations and demonstrates the strength of the police in the local community.
I should like the Minister to take note of and comment on earlier remarks about the private security industry. During the day, the Iaindon shopping centre in my constituency is bustling, lively and friendly, but in the evenings, a gang of youths, some as young as nine or 10,


run around the centre vandalising the place. The police can take few measures to deal with that because the owners of the shopping centre will not co-operate. Henley's Management Ltd., which manages the centre for the owners, refuses to co-operate or to talk to me, the police or the local council.
It is all very well giving local councils and the police the statutory authority to work together, but unless the owners of properties such as shopping centres play their part, the role of the police, community and council will be limited. I have approached the company to suggest a meeting. There is an argument for installing CCTV in the area, or perhaps for making greater use of local private security, but unless the owners of such shopping centres co-operate, the role of the police is limited. The police are playing their part, so will the Minister consider whether there is a way to involve owners of shopping centres and private areas, lock them into community partnerships and impose on them a statutory duty to co-operate with the police and the council?
I want to emphasise the effectiveness of policing. We all recognise that resources are under pressure, but there are ways effectively and intelligently to use the police force, working in the community, to reduce crime. What matters is not police numbers but crime reduction and how communities feel.
Car crime is a problem in Basildon. We have what were seen in the 1960s and 1970s as wonderfully designed housing estates, where children can play and through which cars cannot go. All cars must be parked outside the estates, so people cannot see them from their front doors. As a result, theft of and from cars in Basildon was the highest in Essex. It was a serious problem. As I said, one cannot underestimate the impact of such crime. Auto crime amounted to 33 per cent. of total crime in my constituency—phenomenally high.
The council and the police have targeted resources in the shorter term, which has led to massive reductions in car crime. Theft of cars reduced from 240 a month to 115—it halved. How was that achieved? Operations such as "Biteback"—a significant title—raised the profile of the police, and the local force was restructured. There has been a major shift of emphasis from reactive policing to problem solving. In addition, much stronger links between the police and the community were built, giving the police intelligence of who was responsible for crime.
Many of us are aware that very many relatively minor—I use that word cautiously—crimes are committed by very few people. A disproportionate amount of car crime was being committed by a small group of people. The police were able to deal with that because they could address the people responsible. The police identified the community safety partnership as being responsible for such an achievement.
The police have looked not only to the past, but to the future. The Basildon festival leisure park—the major leisure park for the entire south-east—has recently been built. It has 1,500 car parking spaces, and 20,000 people visit the centre each weekend. There are marvellous leisure facilities, such as night clubs, discos, bowling, cinemas and eating places. One might think that car crime would increase in such circumstances. However, the police and the council have used their resources intelligently. They worked with architects for two years prior to the opening of the development, which resulted in

the provision of a special building for monitoring 24-hour closed circuit television. Security guards are also on duty 24 hours a day. In the first six months of the park's operation, there were six reported cases of auto crime. Few facilities of that size could boast such a record. The strength of the police must lie in the community safety partnerships that they are establishing.
Police in my area have also been involved in tackling crime at its root. They deal not just with crime, but its causes and how it ballooned to such an extent under the Tories. Under the Basildon bonus scheme, in partnership with schools, pupils who are least likely to be able to find jobs on leaving school have been identified. Although there is not a direct link between people who are unemployed and crime, there is no doubt that unemployment, which rocketed under the previous Government, fuels an atmosphere in which crime flourishes. Projects involving schools and mentors from the police and local authority have been aimed at supporting such kids and giving them confidence and self esteem in order to divert them from offending. Such efforts have a long-term impact on crime figures.
We must tackle crime holistically. We cannot just say that the number of police officers has a direct impact on crime. We must also consider how those police officers are employed and how they are used in the community. The Government have given the police extra strength under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. The statutory duty to work with the community has empowered the police.
The Tories have got the issue very badly wrong. By concentrating just on numbers, they have failed to understand the community problems that crime causes. People want to know not just how many police officers there are in Essex or how much money is being spent, but what measures will affect them and prevent them from becoming victims of crime. That is what effective community policing achieves. Crime cannot be seen in a vacuum; it must be seen as part of our community. The sooner that we understand that we need such an holistic approach, which this Government have taken with community safety projects and the Crime and Disorder Act, ensuring that all of us feel part of the community effort to address the problems, the sooner we will tackle the problem that the Tories failed to tackle.

Mr. Andrew Hunter: About half an hour ago, the Home Secretary was speaking about police performance, to which the hon. Member for Basildon (Angela Smith) referred. Neither would dispute the proposition that no single measure can accurately reflect police performance. If, as the Audit Commission says,
the public has a right to expect that increased spending will lead to improved performance",
it is fair to say that there is no direct link between the number of police officers and the effectiveness of the police force in preventing and detecting crime. Nevertheless, as I understand it, the essence of Opposition Members' arguments is that the Government's spending plans for the police for the next three years threaten both the quality of the service that our police forces can provide, and the maintenance of manpower levels. That is exemplified in reports that suggest that, for the financial year 1999–2000, 1,000 officers could be lost from the Metropolitan force.
My speech comes from a Hampshire perspective. My constituency is admirably served by the Hampshire constabulary and a competent police authority. I shall make just three points. The first is somewhat technical. I hope that the Minister will be able to reply later in the debate or, if not, through correspondence in due course. The Government announced a three-year freeze in the standard spending assessment methodology, but it is unclear precisely how that affects the police SSA. In each year since 1995–96, the percentage of police SSA distributed on 1994 officer establishment has been decreasing by 10 per cent.—50 per cent. in 1995–96, 20 per cent. in the financial year that ends shortly and 10 per cent. next year.
Some police authorities are confused about whether that annual 10 per cent. drop constitutes a change in methodology, and will therefore be frozen, or whether it is an inherent part of the methodology, and will therefore continue. According to one's interpretation, Hampshire is looking at the loss of a not insignificant £1.8 million.
Secondly, even if we disregard the methodology issue, the Government's pronouncements on future funding give rise to very great concerns about both the quality of policing and establishment levels. During the 17 years of Conservative government, spending on the police, as hon. Members on both sides of the House have acknowledged, increased each year by an average of 3.4 per cent. over and above inflation. As a result of the comprehensive spending review, however, we are considering increases for the next three years that are only marginally above the rate of inflation. That must be compared with the 6.1 per cent. increase which the Association of Chief Police Officers estimates is required to maintain the existing quality of services and to take on new pressures.
Under Conservative—and, to be fair, for a period, under Liberal—control, Hampshire county council and Hampshire police authority made the maintenance of its combined establishment of civilian and officer manpower a priority. Modest progress was made in just four years; a little under 200 new posts were created. The question now facing us is how sustainable is that increase. Given increases that barely match inflation, some would say that we face a doomsday scenario. The present establishment and quality of service cannot be maintained without the most serious implications for council tax. The so-called 2 per cent. efficiency drive is likely to compound the problem instead of curing it because, as the Audit Commission found, little more than a quarter of 1 per cent. of efficiency savings is to be found.
Therefore the reality behind the Government's rhetoric appears to be lower service, poorer-quality, fewer officers and higher council tax.
In the next few years, identifiable budget pressures will make it even harder to maintain today's establishments. I shall not go into details because the Minister of State is aware of the arguments. There is worry about the funding on public safety of the radiocommunications project, once it is up and running—worry about whether there are adequate funds for it within the financial settlement envisaged for 2000–01. There are capital implications as well as current spending implications. There are similar worries about funding of the National Crime Squad and the National Criminal Intelligence Service. If there are to

be increased overheads as a result of expansion and for other reasons, those must be met by increased levies on local police authorities.
The Labour election manifesto made much of a pledge to promote law and order. In reality, the Treasury must work on the budgets. In the words of the Police Federation press release of 2 December,
This will result in fewer police officers, the closure of local stations and a reduction in front line services.
So much for being tough on crime.

Mr. David Drew: This debate on policing matters is especially opportune. Although Labour Members would criticise the Opposition motion, many useful points will be raised in the debate which I hope will inform, not only ourselves, but the police force and those who look on the police as their protectors.
I shall speak briefly on the three obvious issues. The first is the operational changes that police forces are being asked to undertake. The second is funding—I would not disagree with some of what the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Hunter) said about funding problems. The third issue is the welfare and payment conditions of serving police officers.
The debate comes at a useful time because I shall spend tomorrow night with the local police in my town of Stonehouse. I try to get out with them every three months or so; I believe that it is useful for all hon. Members to see how the police function. I whisper this very softly, but every time that I have been out with the local police they seem to have a quiet night, so I am regarded as a good-luck charm; other Friday nights are not so wonderful. I have yet to see that much action, but I hope to enrich my perspective.
Our police authorities have undergone enormous change since their somewhat controversial establishment. Their true impact is as yet unclear. Some of us would argue that policing still has a resonance within the local government framework, and that there have been dangers in isolating it from other service provision, but those police authorities are extant and we must face up to all the implications.
Many other changes have taken place, not least the one that I am constantly made aware of when I go out and listen to constituents. In the past 10 to 20 years, policing has changed. It is now much more about targeting resources and fighting crime directly, which is not necessarily commensurate with the high-visibility presence of police on the beat. That poses a dilemma. In a rural or semi-rural area, such as the one that I represent, constituents will not see so much of the police. I assure them that there is a lot of policing going on—there is plenty of action behind the scenes. However, they cannot have it both ways. The time that the police spend walking the beat cannot be spent chasing criminals—and most of us would presume that the latter is the most effective way for the police to use their time.
That links with the ministerial statement, made yesterday, I believe, that the Government were prepared to consider changing the location of police stations, different ways in which the police could be tasked to perform their duties and so on. I welcome that because, although there should be a debate on the subject and


although we should be very much affected by what constituents tell us, we cannot believe that the police service is static. It must evolve and move with the times. Criminals are mobile, so we must make the police as mobile as possible.
The need for change has been acknowledged and acted on in my local police force, in Gloucestershire. A year ago, we restructured the police force into three new divisions, and beneath those are inspector areas, under the command and control of inspectors. The three in my area are Inspector Cheryl Thomas in Stonehouse—with whom I shall spend some time tomorrow night—Inspector Dave MacFarlane in Stroud and Inspector Mike Barton in Dursley. I have spoken to each in turn. Interestingly, they all welcome that additional responsibility, and the police on the ground thoroughly understand it.
The re-organisation has freed some people for specialist work in different teams. It is not without criticism—Chief Constable Tony Butler has had to go out and spell out to his force what he is doing and why he is doing it—but, in the main, it seems to have been welcomed and to work well.
Interestingly, we have just got rid of beats in Gloucestershire; we now have a system of parishing, which seems more sensible and which we can all understand. We were never sure what a beat was, who patrolled it and where they would be at any moment.
I shall now discuss the budgetary situation. In Gloucestershire we have an historical problem that pre-dates May 1997. Ours is a relatively small police force. The area is neither urban nor rural and, although it has a population of more than 500,000, that population is well spread, causing locational and funding difficulties.
Like the hon. Member for Basingstoke, I believe that we would have welcomed some re-jigging of the standard spending assessment. We would always argue in Gloucestershire that, because we never fit any of the criteria exactly, we do quite badly out of funding mechanisms. That is true, not only of policing, but of local government and of our health authority.
I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to keep that subject on the agenda. I urge him to ensure that the funding mechanism is as fair and transparent as possible. Might it be at all possible for him to find some more money for Gloucestershire? He knows that I have been in correspondence with him and he knows that we are about to meet—I hope sooner rather than later—to discuss some of the funding difficulties. We had a relatively low increase of 1.4 per cent., which is causing the police force some pain, especially as it is a small force. It is more difficult for a force of that size to accept the notion of 2 per cent. efficiency savings. Having suffered under the previous Government, the force has been asked to take even more difficult decisions on how to eke out the budget this time.
Therefore I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to take back to the Home Office the message that the Gloucestershire police are trying very hard. They have introduced many of the changes that are needed, but the budget is not as good as it could and should be, and we may need to address that, if not this year, in future years.
Before I conclude I shall mention two points, one of which I raised with the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler), and which I was surprised, if not staggered, that he did not mention—the pension

overhang. It is a major problem. I have re-read the police pension review that was published last March. None of us can hide from its findings. The previous Government may have had a good reason for not undertaking such a review earlier, but we have published it and gone out to consultation. The pension issue cannot be avoided for much longer. In a couple of years, we in Gloucestershire will be spending more than 20 per cent. of our budget to keep up with pension payments.
In no way am I attacking the police or saying that we should not pay a good pension. However, the way in which we are currently funding pension payments, including the police provision from their own pocket, is not sustainable in the long run. We all know that. If we claim otherwise, we are fooling ourselves. I hope that my hon. Friend will tell us when policy decisions are to be taken following consultation, and how we will move matters forward.
One of the reasons why police pension payments are so high is that so many police leave the force early. That may be partly a result of attacks on the police. Also, the fact that policing is such a physical job means that they must be at peak fitness. We know about the difficulties, which must be taken into account in long-term plans to improve the welfare of the police. We must ensure that we provide adequate funding and organise policing in the most effective way.
In conclusion, I shall deal with some of the dilemmas confronting the police. It is a pity that the Liberal Democrat Benches are so empty today. It is good to see that the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Russell) is present. I assume that his hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Jones) is elsewhere, as today is the last day of the festival.
The race course in my area has decided to hold a three-day meeting over the millennium, which will require extra policing and the participation of all the emergency services. I have been told, and I am sure that I will be told again tomorrow night when I go out with the police, that the race course will be paying its bar staff about £70 an hour during the night of the millennium. It is quite within its rights to do so, but try to persuade the emergency services, including the police, that it is all well and good for them to work on their normal pay or perhaps a little extra over the same period. They will simply be fulfilling their normal responsibilities, although they will get time off in lieu.
I know that the festival will go ahead over the millennium and bring considerable revenue to Gloucestershire, but we need to think through our attitudes to the police. We take their work for granted. That is why it is so important that we get their pay, conditions and welfare right. We must deal with the pensions issue and ensure that our police operate as efficiently as possible. That can be achieved only if we give them the wherewithal to do their job as well as they can.

Mr. John Hayes: The police services in Britain are struggling, by their own account. The chief constables said that the latest settlement is well short of what is required. The Association of Chief Police Officers stated that even allowing for efficiency gains, the settlement is inadequate to meet current demands, still less new challenges.
I shall deal with five aspects of policing that all relate to the number of police in our police authorities. First, the increase in police numbers that took place during the 1980s and early 1990s has not been matched since. I take the Home Secretary's point that that process began in the early 1990s. It is interesting to note that if the figures are analysed closely, shire areas were disproportionately affected by that tailing off. I shall deal with the reasons for that later.
During the past two or three years, most police authorities have been hit by declining numbers. One of the problems is the relationship between crime rates and police numbers. We heard earlier of the assumption that if crime rates fall, a related fall in the number of policemen is justifiable. That is a fundamental error, reflecting a misunderstanding of the role and purpose of policing. It links policing to crime in too direct a way. The correlation is not so simple.
My second point relates to policing style. I shall not—nor, Mr. Deputy Speaker, would you allow me to—deal with the hyperbole and overreaction in the Macpherson report, although it might be appropriate to say that it is time that hon. Members stood up for our public servants against the ludicrous charge of institutionalised racism. I understand that we shall have the opportunity to do that in a future debate.
Police style is related to numbers. If we believe that the style of policing appropriate for the modern age mainly involves crime-solving, and that it is essentially reactive—like the ambulance service, perhaps—we denigrate the role of prevention, the importance of public morale, and the importance of police morale and complements. Policing should be about civil order and social service. The choice is between the fire brigade or ambulance service model, and the "Dixon of Dock Green" or "Heartbeat" type of policing.
We have heard that there was never any golden age in policing, but I reject the idea that the public do not want more bobbies on the beat—more friendly policemen whom they get to know, who are part of the community, who have particular responsibilities to a locality and who are seen in a positive light by the public. I am sure that is what people want. We must ensure that the policing style reflects that legitimate public demand.
Such a style of policing involves patrolling. In opening the debate, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) spoke of the importance of policemen being seen to patrol—bobbies on the beat, patrolling on foot and by car. Such non-adversarial policing is good for maintaining links between law enforcement officers and the public. The Minister will remember that one of the conclusions of the Scarman report was that there was a danger of the police becoming a remote elite, who were not just hostile to a particular part of society, but anti-people and distant. Part of non-adversarial policing—of the bobbies on the beat culture—is to forge a closer bond between public and police.
My third point entails crime and the fear of crime. All public surveys suggest that the fear of crime is profound. Dealing with that fear should be part of the policing agenda. That will not be accomplished by a style of policing largely based on crime reporting, crime detection and effective emergency reaction.
That brings me to my fourth point, which is about funding. In Lincolnshire, for example, we do not have enough crime or enough of the right type of crime to attract additional resource. [Laughter.] The fact that Labour Members laugh shows that they have not taken notice of what I said earlier. If policing is linked solely to the nature and level of crime, it ignores the role of the police as preventers of crime, the creators of social order and the custodians of a bond between people and the law.
That role is fundamental. If the police are seen as involved solely in clearing up serious crime, that removes aspects of their role such as visiting schools to forge links with young people. That role has largely disappeared in many constabularies because the police simply do not have the manpower for it. That approach, which, from their reaction, is clearly supported by some Labour Members who do not approve of such policing, has done much damage in divorcing the public from the police.
If the grant settlement is tied to a reactive style of policing—a crime-led style of policing—it inevitably reinforces that style of policing, because the police will have only sufficient funds to deal with emergencies. They will not have the latitude to develop innovative policies in non-adversarial policing.

Mr. Drew: Is not the hon. Gentleman missing the point that crime and disorder strategies and partnerships allow the police to work with other elements within their communities to ensure a full coverage of all the issues about which he speaks?

Mr. Hayes: The problem with crime and disorder strategies is that they may become solutions looking for problems. The crime and disorder strategy must be geared up to the preventive non-adversarial policing that I described, and resourced accordingly—I will deal with the standard spending assessment later.
The Minister of State nods, but there is little evidence to suggest that there is a satisfactory solution to the issue of the extra cost of policing rural communities. A research project is under way and I shall be looking for an assurance when the Minister replies that that will be published in the early part of this year so that we can study it. I hope that future settlements will take account of its findings.
At the moment, there is only patchy evidence of any serious commitment to considering the different policing needs of different parts of the country, and, worse still, how different parts of the country need to be funded in a way that is sensitive to their local needs. If policing is funded according to national criteria which are insensitive to particular demands—for example, those of sparsely populated areas—it will be inappropriate for such areas.
The staff in my chief constable's office made that very point to me this morning. To be honest, they did not complain about this year's settlement, although they were disappointed with the Government when the settlement was aggregated over two years. The Home Secretary said that that was because the Government had inherited the previous Government's spending plans—as though a Government coming into office with a massive majority and a mandate would not set their own agenda and say that, having looked at the situation closely, the figures would have to be changed; as though that would not have been part of a legitimate democratic decision.


What nonsense. In Lincolnshire, as in so many other shire counties, aggregated over two years the settlement is disappointing.
My fifth concern is that a problem also arises from the way in which the governance of police is likely to be changed by making police authorities best value authorities. The danger is that the targets that will be set by which the police will be judged are likely to reinforce the style of policing which I described earlier. The targets and measurables will be based on detection rates and measures of efficiency. It is hard to measure the intangible benefits from local community policing, such as school visits, in a way that can be related directly to crime and clear up rates, detection and efficiency. The problem with making police authorities best value authorities is that we shall set in stone targets and measurables—tangibles—which will reinforce an undesirable type of policing which is far removed from that which the public want.
The inclusion of police as best value authorities, inappropriately shoehorned into a structure that is essentially designed for local government, will reinforce many of the problems. It will also challenge the tripartite governance of the police, which is so valued by the police and the public. It will lead to a nationalisation of the police by setting uniform national targets by which the police will be judged, and by decreasing the role of local police authorities, possibly even impinging on chief constables' ability to make their own decisions on operational matters.
Some of those problems are long-term issues, and some are strategic issues, and it would not be fair to blame everything on the Government. [Interruption.] The Minister of State will know that I am renowned for my generosity and I do not want to tarnish that reputation today.
High expectations were raised when the Government took office, and they have no one but themselves to blame for that. Every interest group possible was told that the Government would deliver for them. That was certainly true with regard to police and law and order matters. The fact that there are fewer policemen on the beat in Spalding in my constituency now than there were five years ago is a cause of real concern to my constituents. They do not understand why the Government have not delivered on their pledges, have broken their promises and disappointed the people of Lincolnshire and elsewhere in Britain.
The Minister may legitimately say that some of these issues are strategic, but we will reply with equal legitimacy that the Government have made a slow start in addressing these strategic matters and have disappointed not only the people of Lincolnshire, but the people of Britain.

Ms Hazel Blears: I appreciate that one of the great strengths of the House is the diverse perspective that hon. Members bring to our discussions. But listening to some contributions this afternoon, I genuinely wonder whether Conservative Members have any idea what it is like living in an inner city, trying to cope with the explosion of crime that has taken place in recent years, and whether they have any understanding or appreciation of what my constituents face daily as they live with crime, burglary, robbery, violence and massively escalating theft.
It is right to set today's debate in a context. Conservative Members do not like to be reminded of uncomfortable figures; they prefer those that support their arguments. But we must examine the massive explosion in crime during the 18 years of Conservative Government. I shall confine my remarks to Greater Manchester, the area that I represent and know. In those 18 years, recorded crime rose by 130,000. That is a massive figure. Crimes against the person tripled in those years. Burglary increased two and a half times to a massive figure of 75,000 burglaries a year. Unbelievably, incidents of robbery increased 12 times, from 494 in 1979 to 6,296 in 1997. It may well be that resources have been put into the police, but the results of those resources have been pathetic. They did not deliver what the people wanted.
My constituents want crime to be reduced and burglars and robbers to be caught, convicted and sentenced. They also want the good, effective community policing. I say to the hon. Member for South Holland and—

Mr. Hayes: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Is the hon. Lady giving way, or just hesitating?

Ms Blears: I was simply hesitating because I could not remember the hon. Gentleman's constituency.
I say to the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) that my police force regularly goes into primary and secondary schools, investing a huge amount of time and resources in trying to ensure that young people can grow up with a sense of moral values, knowing the difference between right and wrong and trusting the police. We recognise that it is in working with young people that we shall begin to reduce the menace of crime that threatens those whom I represent. That is the context in which we should be talking about police numbers this afternoon. I am particularly worried about the increase in violent crimes—which threaten people's sense of safety and security—in many inner-city areas. Not only crimes that have been committed, but fear of crime limits people's willingness and ability to take part in normal community activities. Even the police now recognise that the links between unemployment, poverty, deprivation and crime are incontrovertible. Therefore we have to rebuild our communities if we are to tackle their long-term problems of crime.
The Opposition have a short and selective memory. They have concentrated on certain figures this afternoon, but I, for one, will never let them forget that their policies led to the massive explosion in crime, certainly in my city. Over 18 years of Tory Government there was excessive consumption for a few and a life of real hardship for the many.

Mr. Hayes: Will the hon. Lady give way?

Ms Blears: No.
The Government have had to pick up the pieces after the community breakdown and disintegration that took place over those years, which is a huge task. Labour Members readily acknowledge that progress will not be achieved overnight and that our communities will not become safe and secure within a short time, but if we are


to be successful we will have to be much more imaginative and creative about the way in which we run all our public services. That includes the police.

Mr. Hayes: Will the hon. Lady give way?

Ms Blears: Time is short, so I do not intend to give way.
We need to examine the figures closely. The Audit Commission has said that there is no direct correlation between police numbers and the detection of recorded crime, but it has also said that there are significant variations in performance between police forces. The clear-up rate on burglaries in the best-performing metropolitan force is almost twice that of the worst. In particular, the Welsh police forces seem to do very well; they clear up 43 per cent. of burglaries, but only 11 per cent. of burglaries are cleared up in Greater Manchester.
To me, those figures say that questions need to be asked about how the police are working, how they are conducting their business, what they do in different areas and how we can learn from best practice. For example, why can Cumbria police detect 33 per cent. of recorded crime and Derbyshire police only 20 per cent? Those numbers are more complicated for the Opposition to deal with because they require thought and analysis, and they need to be worked through. Perhaps that is why the Opposition choose to rely on the crude numbers relating to simple police strength. The figures relating to performance raise difficult issues for us to tackle, but, if we are to achieve sustainable long-term improvements, we must be prepared to analyse them.
The Audit Commission report says that there is little direct correlation between the number of police officers employed, the work that they do and the targets that they achieve. The police have now recognised that they cannot simply tackle crime on their own and that they have to work in partnership with others. That would add value to the money that we spend on the police.
The police are not some separate force, but integral to our communities. They work with the housing, education and social services, business and voluntary sectors as well as with the community. Bringing that expenditure together and making sure that we get added value from it is that task that faces us.
Local people do not particularly want more crime to be detected, although that would help. They want crime to be reduced, or not to be committed in the first place. We must shift the emphasis of the conduct of policing from simply trying to detect crime once it has happened—because, by then, there is already a victim and communities are being destroyed—to addressing the start of the process, to make sure that we concentrate on reducing and preventing crime.
To achieve that objective the police must work with other partners, such as local councils, to design better street lighting and work on housing estates, and with the business community to set up closed circuit television systems, for example. In the development at Salford Quays, which is a prime industrial development, local businesses are helping to fund extra police services and the installation of closed circuit television.

Those businesses recognise that it is in their best interests to make sure that the police force perform properly and competently.
The police also have to work with the public. I will welcome the anti-burglary initiatives that will be announced in the next few days. They will mean that many of my constituents will be physically safer in their own homes, but the overriding objective must be to strengthen our local communities. That means that the police must use ways of working that are very different from those that they used in the past.
If we want to make our towns and cities places in which people want to live, work and bring up their families, we have to make sure that people have pride in their areas. They also need the confidence and the strength to combat the criminals themselves, but that ability has been lost from many of our communities. People live in fear and are often unwilling to give evidence when they witness crime. They do not feel that they have a stake in the community and do not feel safe and confident enough to intervene.
I am pleased that imaginative, innovative and creative work is being done in many police forces up and down the country, and we should recognise and applaud that. Resources are being put into diverting young people from crime, not only through school visits, but through involvement in practical projects on the ground. I shall give two examples from my constituency. The Gears project is funded by the police, the probation service and the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, and those bodies bring together youngsters with a particular interest in motor bikes.
Those youngsters might have stolen motor bikes—[Interruption.] As a keen motor cyclist, I have a great interest in that. Those bodies bring young people together to build their own racing motor bikes. They are acquiring skills and receiving training in welding and engineering, which is diverting them into much more positive activity, and there is also an element of excitement for them.
If we are genuinely to divert young people from crime, we cannot simply invite them along to a youth club for a game of football, ping-pong or whatever. Young people want to be involved in exciting activities that give them a buzz and make life worth living, and our motor cycle project has been extremely successful in diverting young people from crime.
The second constituency example is a project run by my local rugby league team, Salford Reds. The club has an incredibly successful youth development programme and works with other organisations. The police are very supportive of the project and people visit primary schools—not only to get the youngsters playing rugby league, but to get them along to matches and involved in the club so that they feel that they have a stake in their city. That is so important in making sure that we build the self-confidence of those communities. Projects that divert our young people from crime are very important.
The police are working in new ways. We are putting an awful lot of resources into video surveillance. In areas with a lot of crime and disorder, parents often deny that their youngsters are responsible for causing trouble, but they react swiftly and effectively if they are confronted with video evidence of their children committing crimes and making other people's lives a misery.
Targeted policing means that our police meet every week to consider the causes of incidents and target their resources on the hotspots of crime. The police draw in officers from the housing department and the local authority and make sure that they consider the full spectrum of reasons for crime taking place in our community. They do not simply patrol the beat; they direct their activities to where maximum effect will be achieved and crime will be reduced.
In Salford we have a wonderful witness support scheme, which has been acknowledged in the Home Office document "Speaking up for Justice". It supports witnesses from the day that they witness a crime all the way through the process until they are able to give evidence in court. We must have more than a court-based scheme. We must say to people who are brave enough and strong enough to stand up and give evidence in difficult circumstances, "We are with you, we will support you, we will help you and we will take you through the whole process." I commend Salford's witness support scheme as an example of good practice.
All those are new ways of working. The police service should not remain static. The world is changing and the police service, and all our public services, have to change, too. We believe in public service, but we also believe in getting value for money from the investment that we make. Up and down the country, innovation is taking place and the old numbers game is over. It is not enough for Governments simply to allocate the resources, wash their hands, step back and not take any responsibility for results.
The huge variations in detection rates show us that some factors make some forces more successful than others. Those are difficult issues, but tackling them is the only way to achieve sustainable, long-term success. We are not about short-term thinking; this Government will be in office for a long time to come. The people in Salford whom I represent are delighted that, at long last, they have a Government who take their views seriously. The Government are getting involved in a partnership and in setting local priorities and targets. They will have the levers to drive up those standards. They have a Government who are listening, and I believe that it is because the Conservative Government did not listen and were out of touch that they are now out of office. Long may that remain so. I urge hon. Members to dismiss this motion.

Mr. John Greenway: It is disappointing that some colleagues were unable to speak in this debate, but doubtless they will find other ways of voicing their concerns about the state of the police service in their constituencies.
The Home Secretary failed to deal with the central point in the Opposition motion that police numbers are falling as a direct consequence of the policies of the Government. When he was not making personal attacks on my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler), he seemed to be saying that the budget that the Government have allocated to the police is challenging but adequate. The Opposition say that the police funding settlement under Labour for the next three years is insufficient to maintain an effective police service. The direct consequence will be fewer

police officers—not hundreds fewer, but potentially thousands fewer—which will undermine the fight against crime and the Government's law and order strategy.

Angela Smith: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Greenway: No, I shall not give way.
From Essex to Cumbria, Bedfordshire to Gloucestershire and Lincolnshire to North Yorkshire, police numbers are going down, and we have heard much about that this afternoon. We believe that there is room for improvements in efficiency, but the Government insist on a 2 per cent. across the board efficiency gain in each of the next three years, and the effect of that will be inconsistent across the country. It penalises the very forces—many of them are the smaller, rural forces—that have already taken action to improve efficiency within their force. There was no better example of that than the one given by the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) about Gloucestershire.
Sensible changes in the police estate will take years—not months—to implement. I refer particularly to yesterday's welcome report from the Audit Commission, "Action Stations". I am quite frankly astonished that the Home Secretary did not find time to refer to it in his 40-minute tirade.
Ministers have still not said how the 2 per cent. annual efficiency savings will be judged, but their impact cannot be in question: there will be fewer officers and a reduced service to the public just at a time—and this is central to our motion—when it is most essential to build the best possible relations between the police and the public.
The Home Secretary criticised the record of the previous Conservative Government. I shall briefly highlight four points. First, crime rates fell by 15 per cent. between 1994–95 and 1997–98: the source of the figures is the Audit Commission's 1997–98 report. Secondly, the number of constables increased in England and Wales by 2,322 between April 1992 and March 1997. The source for that is a written answer by the Secretary of State for Wales when he was a Minister in the Home Office. The average time that police constables spent in public increased by 4 per cent. between 1994–95 and 1996–97: again the source is the Audit Commission in its 1996–97 report. That report also stated:
Most forces had increases in their funding in real terms between 1993/94 and 1996/97.
The Home Secretary seemed to forget what he said in his press statement a year ago announcing Labour's first police grant report settlement for 1998–99. He said:
The police are the only local authority service to have had an increase greater than inflation in each of the last four years.
That is, four years in which the budgets were set by a Conservative Government. He has the audacity to come here today with a weak defence against the motion and to criticise that record.

Mr. Collins: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Greenway: If my hon. Friend will allow me, I shall not give way.
The Home Secretary clearly thought that such increases were a good thing. What has now persuaded him to change his mind, or did he not fight hard enough in the comprehensive spending review? Concerns about


resources in the first Labour police settlement were brushed aside with the excuse that all the Government were doing was sticking to Tory spending plans. We heard the same point made again today, and we heard it on Tuesday when the Home Secretary had the audacity to use that as an excuse not to find money for closed circuit television cameras.
What do we find when the Government escape the shackles of budget constraints set by the mean old Tories and new Labour is free to do its own thing and put its money where its mouth is? The public and the nation should know what "tough on crime" really means under new Labour. What we got was a 1 per cent. cut in last year's settlement. We have got what the Police Superintendents Association has described as the worst spending round in a generation. The tragedy is that there are two more years of the same still to come. What a complete lack of political commitment to the police from a Government who seem intent on running down the police service! That lack of commitment risks a demoralised police force, from which the only gainers are the criminals. The losers will be our constituents: the general public.
The debate has shown that the demands we make on the police are greater than ever before. The police service throughout the country is overstretched. More and more police officers suffer from stress-related illnesses and violence through assaults. Our constituents want more visible policing. Much is made of zero tolerance—the in phrase is hotspot policing. Whatever name we choose, for the policy to be successful, it must be manpower intensive.
We need more officers, not fewer. They will have to implement the provisions of the new Crime and Disorder Act 1998, establish community partnerships, be responsible for policing millennium events, tackle vehicle crime, make our city centres safe late at night, build on the success of Operation Bumblebee to reduce burglary and Operation Eagle Eye to reduce street robberies, and respond every hour of every day to major road traffic accidents.
Those intractable problems cannot be solved by soundbites, by local authority or private patrols, or by a sudden conversion to CCTV cameras as a cheap way out—as we heard on Tuesday. Those initiatives should support the police, not be seen as a substitute for the police. Anyone who talks to police officers regularly will know that the police service wants to do an even better job and make our communities safer. Increasingly, the police feel betrayed by a lack of support from the Government.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield drew attention to what the Police Federation rightly said—that Treasury officials had swung the axe on police budgets. Like the Police Federation, several hon. Members have predicted fewer police officers, the closure of local stations and a reduction in front-line services in their areas, and those predictions are now coming true. That is not what the people of this country voted for in May 1997, and it will weigh heavily against new Labour when it chooses to face the country in two or three years' time.
What we heard from the Home Secretary was the same old display of complacency and commitment bordering on contempt. We ask no more than that the Government should match the Conservative commitment towards the police. They should match the pledge made by the Leader of the Opposition in Reading at the weekend to halt this decline in police numbers.
Hon. Members from both sides of the House must know that chief constables, police authorities, serving police officers and their constituents are deeply concerned about falling police numbers. This afternoon they can show how much they share that concern by supporting our motion.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Paul Boateng): This morning, I went straight from the BBC studios—where I engaged in a debate with the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler)—to the streets of Peckham, where I joined two dedicated serving police officers on their patrol of a local estate. That was a necessary and salutary corrective, following my experience of debating the issue with the right hon. Gentleman. His rantings and ravings on police numbers—[Interruption.] Yes, that is what they are. The right hon. Gentleman's rantings and ravings bear no relation to what is actually happening.
While the right hon. Gentleman goes on and on about police numbers, police officers working on the ground with the public are responding to the challenge that they have been set by a Government who are determined to bring about the partnership between police and public that is the real answer to the problem of reducing and preventing crime. The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 creates the necessary context—a context within which we are devoting new resources to tackling the challenges of policing as we move into the next millennium. To pretend otherwise is to live in a fantasy land—the sort of fantasy land in which the right hon. Gentleman dwells all too often for the purpose of making political points about police numbers, and which the hon. Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) sought to perpetuate.

Ms Candy Atherton: As my hon. Friend will know, we in Cornwall will have a particular policing problem in August, when there will be a total eclipse of the sun. Can he or our right hon. Friend the Home Secretary help in any way?

Mr. Boateng: My right hon. Friend has visited Cornwall to meet the chief constable, members of the police authority and members of the public. We shall respond in due course to the anxieties that my hon. Friend has expressed so eloquently in recent months.

Sir Norman Fowler: Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Boateng: No, not at this point.
The lesson from Devon and Cornwall is being repeated throughout the country. It suggests that police and community should come together to deliver safe and secure communities. To get hung up on the issue of police numbers, as the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield does, is to miss the point. This Government are applying an unprecedented level of resources to the task of policing our country.
The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) demonstrated real concern about Lincolnshire, and the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Hunter) was equally concerned about Hampshire; but when we compare what Conservative Members say with what has actually happened, we see a stark contrast between the two. Under a Labour Government, Lincolnshire's budget has been increased by 4.4 per cent. That is a larger increase than it had under the Tories at any time during the last three years of their Administration. The hon. Gentleman ought to be saying thank you, rather than pointing the finger of blame at the Government. The hon. Member for Basingstoke also whinged about resources, but, under this Labour Government, his local force received a 3.3 per cent. Increase—above the national average—in its budget.
I visited Hampshire recently, and I commend the excellent work of the Hampshire police. In fact, the number of police increased by 38 in the six months between March and September 1998. That simply does not bear out the suggestion by Opposition Front Benchers that we are letting the police down. The reverse is the case.

Sir Norman Fowler: Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Boateng: No.
What we are doing is putting the emphasis on police efficiency and effectiveness, which is where it belongs. We are pursuing an agenda that has been endorsed by the Select Committee on Home Affairs, by the Audit Commission and by Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary. All those bodies recognise that to see the issue in terms of numbers alone is to miss the point.
The Tories really have lost the plot in regard to the policing of our country. We are determined to pursue this debate in ways that bring communities and police closer together, and recognise the importance of the targeting initiatives that we launched in Peckham this morning. We are devoting new resources—some £5 million out of a total of £250 million—to underpinning our crime reduction strategy, in addition to the £1.24 billion settlement.
The hon. Member for Ryedale was disparaging about closed circuit television, but it is cementing a partnership not just between police and public but, importantly, between the police and the private sector. That partnership is delivering in shopping malls and public spaces up and down the country: delivering, under a Labour Government, something that a Conservative Government consistently failed to deliver. Why are we delivering that? We are delivering it because we have learned the lessons of modern policing, which are about spreading good practice and building on the excellent work that the police are doing throughout the country.
Let me give an example. We have learned from auto crime, including thefts from vehicles, that it is not enough to be reactive: it is not enough to be in the business of spouting the simple rhetoric that we hear from Conservative Members. The police must be supported in their job of gathering criminal intelligence. It is necessary to support their proactive approach, which is about disrupting the market in the supply of stolen goods and which is intelligence led and problem orientated, and about backing that up with resources that deliver. Those resources must deliver in terms of promoting a sense of

well-being and security among the public, and also in terms of meeting the demand that chief constables and the men and women on the ground properly make of their Government.
What is that demand? It cannot be seen simply in terms of numbers; it also provides a context for the sort of partnership that was described by my hon. Friends the Members for Stroud (Mr. Drew) and for Basildon (Angela Smith). We are talking about people working on the ground in order to cut the ground under the criminal: people working on the ground to ensure that local authorities, through the youth service, are working not against, but alongside the police and diverting young people from crime and offending. We are talking about those who do the business of policing. That is not about rhetoric—the sort of rhetoric that we hear from Conservative Members—but about delivering a reality based on partnership between the police and the public and, importantly, on the significant resources that this Government alone have managed to deliver to the police in recent times.
Those resources mean that we are able, together, to reduce crime. They mean that we are able to prevent crime. They enable us to proceed on the basis that together we can beat crime, and undermine criminal activity. That is what we intend to do. We intend not to engage in empty rhetoric about numbers, but to engage in the serious business of delivering a strategy on the ground that reduces and prevents crime. Nothing will stop us from doing that—working with the police and the public to promote a safe and secure society.

Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—

The House divided: Ayes 121, Noes 315.

Division No. 118]
[4 pm


AYES


Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)
Fallon, Michael


Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James
Forth, Rt Hon Eric


Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)
Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman


Bercow, John
Fraser, Christopher


Beresford, Sir Paul
Garnier, Edward


Body, Sir Richard
Gibb, Nick


Boswell, Tim
Gill, Christopher


Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)
Goodlad, Rt Hon Sir Alastair


Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia
Gorman, Mrs Teresa


Brooke, Rt Hon Peter
Gray, James


Browning, Mrs Angela
Green, Damian


Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)
Greenway, John


Burns, Simon
Grieve, Dominic


Butterfill, John
Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie


Chapman, Sir Sydney(Chipping Barnet)
Hawkins, Nick



Hayes, John


Chope, Christopher
Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David


Clappison, James
Horam, John


Clark, Rt Hon Alan (Kensington)
Howard, Fit Hon Michael


Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey
Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)


Colvin, Michael
Hunter, Andrew


Cormack, Sir Patrick
Jack, Rt Hon Michael


Cran, James
Jenkin, Bernard


Curry, Rt Hon David
Johnson Smith, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey


Davies, Quentin (Grantham)



Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice & Howden)
Key, Robert



Kirkbride, Miss Julie


Day, Stephen
Laing, Mrs Eleanor


Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen
Lait, Mrs Jacqui


Duncan, Alan
Lansley, Andrew


Faber, David
Leigh, Edward


Fabricant, Michael
Lidington, David






Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)
Soames, Nicholas


Loughton, Tim
Spelman, Mrs Caroline


Luff, Peter
Spicer, Sir Michael


Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas
Spring, Richard


MacGregor, Rt Hon John
Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John


McIntosh, Miss Anne
Streeter, Gary


MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew
Syms, Robert


Maclean, Rt Hon David
Tapsell, Sir Peter


McLoughlin, Patrick
Taylor, John M (Solihull)


Madel, Sir David
Taylor, Sir Teddy


Malins, Humfrey
Thompson, William


Maples, John
Townend, John


Maude, Rt Hon Francis
Tredinnick, David


Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian
Trend, Michael


May, Mrs Theresa
Tyrie, Andrew


Moss, Malcolm
Wardle, Charles


Nicholls, Patrick
Waterson, Nigel


Norman, Archie
Wells, Bowen


Ottaway, Richard
Whitney, Sir Raymond


Paice, James
Whittingdale, John


Paterson, Owen
Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann


Pickles, Eric
Wilkinson, John


Prior, David
Willetts, David


Randall, John
Wilshire, David


Redwood, Rt Hon John
Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)


Robathan, Andrew
Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)


Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)
Woodward, Shaun


Rowe, Andrew (Faversham)
Young, Rt Hon Sir George


Ruffley, David



St Aubyn, Nick
Tellers for the Ayes:


Shephard, Rt Hon Mrs Gillian
Mr. Tim Collins and


Shepherd, Richard
Mr. Oliver Heald.


NOES


Abbott, Ms Diane
Butler, Mrs Christine


Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley N)
Byers, Rt Hon Stephen


Ainger, Nick
Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)


Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)
Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)


Allan, Richard
Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies(NE Fife)


Allen, Graham



Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)
Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)


Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)
Canavan, Dennis


Atherton, Ms Candy
Caplin, Ivor


Atkins, Charlotte
Casale, Roger


Austin, John
Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)


Baker, Norman
Chaytor, David


Ballard, Jackie
Chidgey, David


Banks, Tony
Chisholm, Malcolm


Barnes, Harry
Clapham, Michael


Barron, Kevin
Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields)


Battle, John
Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)


Bayley, Hugh
Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)


Beard, Nigel
Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)


Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret
Clwyd, Ann


Begg, Miss Anne
Coaker, Vernon


Bell, Stuart (Middlesbrough)
Coleman, Iain


Bennett, Andrew F
Connarty, Michael


Benton, Joe
Cook, Frank (Stockton N)


Bermingham, Gerald
Cooper, Yvette


Berry, Roger
Corbett, Robin


Best, Harold
Corbyn, Jeremy


Betts, Clive
Corston, Ms Jean


Blackman, Liz
Cotter, Brian


Blears, Ms Hazel
Cousins, Jim


Boateng, Paul
Cox, Tom


Borrow, David
Cranston, Ross


Bradley, Keith (Withington)
Crausby, David


Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)
Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)


Brake, Tom
Cryer, John (Hornchurch)


Brown, Rt Hon Nick (Newcastle E)
Cunliffe, Lawrence


Brown, Russell (Dumfries)
Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)


Browne, Desmond
Dalyell, Tam


Buck, Ms Karen
Darvill, Keith


Burden, Richard
Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)


Burgon, Colin
Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)


Burstow, Paul
Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H)





Dawson, Hilton
Kennedy, Charles (Ross Skye)


Dean, Mrs Janet
Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)


Denham, John
Khabra, Piara S


Dismore, Andrew
King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)


Dobbin, Jim
King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green)


Doran, Frank
Kingham, Ms Tess


Dowd, Jim
Kumar, Dr Ashok


Drew, David
Ladyman, Dr Stephen


Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth
Lawrence, Ms Jackie


Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)
Laxton, Bob


Edwards, Huw
Leslie, Christopher


Efford, Clive
Levitt, Tom


Ellman, Mrs Louise
Linton, Martin


Etherington, Bill
Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)


Fatchett, Rt Hon Derek
Love, Andrew


Fearn, Ronnie
McAllion, John


Field, Rt Hon Frank
McAvoy, Thomas


Fisher, Mark
McCafferty, Ms Chris


Fitzpatrick, Jim
McDonagh, Siobhain


Fitzsimons, Loma
Macdonald, Calum


Flint, Caroline
McGuire, Mrs Anne


Flynn, Paul
McIsaac, Shona


Follett, Barbara
McKenna, Mrs Rosemary


Foster, Rt Hon Derek
Mackinlay, Andrew


Foster, Don (Bath)
McLeish, Henry


Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)
Mactaggart, Fiona


Foster, Michael J (Worcester)
McWalter, Tony


Foulkes, George
Mallaber, Judy


Fyfe, Maria
Mandelson, Rt Hon Peter


Galloway, George
Marek, Dr John


Gapes, Mike
Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)


George, Andrew (St Ives)
Marshall, David (Shettleston)


Gerrard, Neil
Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)


Gibson, Dr Ian
Martlew, Eric


Godman, Dr Norman A
Maxton, John


Gorrie, Donald
Merron, Gillian


Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)
Milburn, Rt Hon Alan


Grocott, Bruce
Mitchell, Austin


Grogan, John
Moonie, Dr Lewis


Hall, Patrick (Bedford)
Moore, Michael


Hancock, Mike
Moran, Ms Margaret


Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)
Morley, Elliot


Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)
Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)


Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)
Mountford, Kali


Hepburn, Stephen
Mudie, George


Heppell, John
Mullin, Chris


Hewitt, Ms Patricia
Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)


Hill, Keith
Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)


Hoey, Kate
Naysmith, Dr Doug


Home Robertson, John
Oaten, Mark


Hoon, Geoffrey
O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)


Hope, Phil
O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)


Hopkins, Kelvin
O'Hara, Eddie


Howarth, George (Knowsley N)
Olner, Bill


Hoyle, Lindsay
O'Neill, Martin


Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)
Öpik, Lembit


Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)
Organ, Mrs Diana


Humble, Mrs Joan
Osborne, Ms Sandra


Hurst, Alan
Palmer, Dr Nick


Iddon, Dr Brian
Pearson, Ian


Illsley, Eric
Perham, Ms Linda


Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)
Pickthall, Colin


Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)
Pike, Peter L


Jamieson, David
Plaskitt, James


Jenkins, Brian
Pollard, Kerry


Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)
Pond, Chris


Jones, Helen (Warrington N)
Pope, Greg


Jones, Ms Jenny(Wolverh'ton SW)
Powell, Sir Raymond



Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)


Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)
Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)


Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S)
Prescott, Rt Hon John


Keeble, Ms Sally
Primarolo, Dawn


Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)
Prosser, Gwyn


Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)
Purchase, Ken


Kelly, Ms Ruth
Rammell, Bill


Kemp, Fraser
Rapson, Syd






Raynsford, Nick
Stinchcombe, Paul


Reid, Rt Hon Dr John (Hamilton N)
Stoate, Dr Howard


Rendel, David
Stott, Roger


Roche, Mrs Barbara
Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin


Rooker, Jeff
Straw, Rt Hon Jack


Rooney, Terry
Stringer, Graham


Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)
Sutcliffe, Gerry


Rowlands, Ted
Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann(Dewsbury)


Roy, Frank



Ruane, Chris
Taylor, Matthew (Truro)


Ruddock, Joan
Temple-Morris, Peter


Russell, Bob (Colchester)
Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)


Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)
Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)


Ryan, Ms Joan
Timms, Stephen


Salter, Martin
Tipping, Paddy


Sanders, Adrian
Todd, Mark


Savidge, Malcolm
Tonge, Dr Jenny


Sawford, Phil
Touhig, Don


Sedgemore, Brian
Trickett, Jon


Shaw, Jonathan
Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)


Sheerman, Barry
Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)


Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert
Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)


Shipley, Ms Debra
Twigg, Derek (Halton)


Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)
Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)


Singh, Marsha
Tyler, Paul


Skinner, Dennis
Vis, Dr Rudi


Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)
Walley, Ms Joan



Ward, Ms Claire


Smith, Angela (Basildon)
Wareing, Robert N


Smith, Miss Geraldine(Morecambe & Lunesdale)
Watts, David



White, Brian


Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)
Whitehead, Dr Alan


Smith, John (Glamorgan)
Wicks, Malcolm


Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)
Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)


Snape, Peter
Wills, Michael


Soley, Clive
Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)


Southworth, Ms Helen
Wood, Mike


Spellar, John
Worthington, Tony


Squire, Ms Rachel
Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)


Starkey, Dr Phyllis
Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock)


Steinberg, Gerry



Stevenson, George
Tellers for the Noes:


Stewart, David (Inverness E)
Mr. David Hanson and


Stewart, Ian (Eccles)
Mr. David Clelland.

Question accordingly negatived.

Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.

MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House pays tribute to the high standards of policing in this country; notes that the previous administration's promises in 1992 and 1995 of an additional 6,000 police officers were never carried through and that police numbers instead fell; welcomes the additional £1.24 billion for the police service and the extra £400 million for the crime reduction programme which are to be provided over the next three years; supports the police in their crucial role in tackling crime and creating safer communities; and recognises the need for the police, as with other public services, to continue to improve efficiency and effectiveness and deliver best value in the interests of the whole country.

Roads

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): Madam Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

Mrs. Gillian Shephard: I beg to move,
That this House believes that the Government, having promised an integrated transport policy, are creating a standstill Britain and failing to deliver the immediate benefits promised before the general election; notes that 94 per cent. of passenger travel and 91 per cent. of goods moved within the UK is by road, so that a modern and efficient roads network is vital for UK prosperity and competitiveness; notes that the condition of UK roads is deteriorating; condemns the Government for cutting the programme of motorway and trunk road improvements to 37 schemes, which will increase the congestion and pollution which the Government say they oppose, despite raising the tax burden on the road user to £33 billion per year, of which less than one sixth is spent on transport; and calls upon the Government to stop hitting the road user with ever-higher taxes as a substitute for real policies to reduce congestion and pollution and to get Britain moving again.
The Labour party came to power pledging immediate benefits for the travelling public from its transport policies. Its manifesto promised
an effective and integrated transport policy at national, regional and local level that will provide genuine choice to meet people's transport needs.
Two years on, where are those benefits? There has certainly been plenty of spin. The Government have churned out more than 100 glossy publications and consultative documents on transport. Friends of the Earth has described the Government's style as "carry on consulting".
There has been no shortage of photo opportunities. The travelling public have been treated to images of the Deputy Prime Minister posing at a bus stop—unfortunately for him, with one of his two Jaguars just within camera shot waiting to pick him up. They have seen him strap-hanging on the London underground—for just one stop, I think—to prove his public transport credentials. Those credentials were subsequently rather damaged by the revelation that he took a Royal Air Force helicopter, at public expense, to switch on the Blackpool illuminations. This week in the tabloid press there have been some fetching pictures—I suppose that one has to call them glamour pictures, although, thankfully for us all, they were not on page 3—of the Deputy Prime Minister delivering a lecture from the jaws of the deep on the need for the rest of us to use the bus more. The Sun called it "scuba skiving".
There have been promises, promotional pamphlets, photographs and hot air—plenty of that—but no immediate benefits for the travelling public. The Government's transport policy has achieved increased fuel taxes, cuts in transport spending, a slashed roads programme and no reductions in congestion and pollution. It is small wonder that a recent BBC MORI poll showed that just 3 per cent. of people think that the Government are doing a good job on transport. People know that they are paying more and getting less.
The Government want the public to believe that they have not increased taxes. Despite the Prime Minister's denials in the House and elsewhere, figures from the House of Commons Library show that taxes are set to be £7.1 billion higher next year as a direct result of the Chancellor's first three Budgets. Increased taxation for the motorist is part of the Government's stealth tax attack. They are hostile to the motorist. They attack what they call car dependency as though it were an illness. They appear not to realise that, for many, the car is a necessity, not a luxury.
Petrol in Britain is now the most expensive in Europe. Of every £10 that the travelling public pay at the pumps, £8.50 goes straight to the Exchequer. As the Automobile Association has said, it is as though the Chancellor
is using motorists as a private piggy bank".
Adding together increased fuel tax, VAT and increased excise duty on all vehicles except sit-on lawnmowers, it became clear this week that not even the Mini has a small enough engine to qualify for the Chancellor's much trumpeted reduction in vehicle excise duty: road users will be paying to the Exchequer around £33 billion this year. The Government will be taking £9 billion more from road users in extra fuel tax during this Parliament than would have been the case if our policies had remained in place.

Mr. Michael Fabricant: Does my right hon. Friend anticipate, as I do, that the Minister of Transport will say that the escalator was of the Conservative party's invention? To pre-empt the jeering Labour mob, will she confirm that this Government increased the escalator by a full 20 per cent. in the Budget?

Mrs. Shephard: We introduced the fuel escalator when fuel was cheaper in the United Kingdom than in Europe and we needed to meet our CO2 targets. This Government have increased the fuel escalator. We oppose that increase. As we did with whisky duty, the Government should review the global effect of their policies on road travellers and reduce that tax burden.

The Minister of Transport (Dr. John Reid): To set the record straight, will the hon. Lady confirm that the last five increases under the Conservative Government in the taxes about which she is talking were 10 per cent, 10 per cent., 13 per cent., 10 per cent. and 7 per cent?

Mrs. Shephard: No doubt the right hon. Gentleman will confirm later that he has imposed an extra £9 billion on the motorist during this Parliament, together with cuts in public transport and the roads programme.
The people worst affected by the Government's policies, as the AA regularly points out, will not be those with two Jaguars, but people for whom a car is a necessity. It is a secure, convenient means of transport for women, the elderly and families, as well as for those who live in the countryside, where 85 per cent. of households have and need a car.

Mrs. Christine Butler: May I advise the right hon. Lady that one of the Jaguars of the Deputy Prime Minister is a bicycle?

Mrs. Shephard: That is the best definition of Jaguar that I have heard for some time. I look forward to the next photo opportunity and seeing the Deputy Prime Minister on a bicycle disguised as a Jaguar.
This will not be the end of the Government's taxation on motorists. They are preparing three more taxes; congestion charging, motorway tolls and a tax on workplace parking. It is no good the Government promising that the income will be hypothecated to invest in transport improvements, because they also promised, before the election, that there would be no tax increases under the Labour Government. I am afraid that no one will believe them.
The Government are saving their worst example of highway robbery for business. Company car tax is to be increased—but at least the Chancellor announced that in his Budget. Curiously, he failed to announce that he was increasing the price of diesel by more than 11 per cent.—or more than 6p a litre. He played down the fact that he was setting the price of a tax disc for large trucks at a rate 11 times higher than the average in Europe.
The day after the Budget, the Road Haulage Association set up a telephone helpline to advise haulage companies planning to register abroad. There were 700 calls on the first day. However, moving abroad is perhaps what the Government want. In a letter to my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) on 23 February, the Minister said that all hauliers who operate internationally
can take advantage of lower prices elsewhere.
At least we know.

Mr. Gordon Prentice: Did not the price of DERV increase by 60 per cent. between 1990 and 1997? Why did the considerations that apply in 1999 not apply between 1990 and 1997?

Mrs. Shephard: If the hon. Gentleman does his sums, he will realise that he is talking about a period of seven years, and he is talking about price increases.
Many smaller haulage companies cannot afford to move abroad, and many do not operate internationally. They will go out of business. This week, The Times, on the basis of a letter sent by a number of business organisations, estimated that transport tax could cost 50,000 haulage and associated jobs in three years.
The Minister of Transport is a sensible man.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Mr. Geraint Davies: Will the right hon. Lady give way?

Hon. Members: Oh!

Mrs. Shephard: Does the hon. Gentleman wish to correct me?

Mr. Davies: I wish to refer to the point made before the right hon. Lady's last, excellent point. May I draw to her attention the fact that the overall costs of running a typical firm of 50 38-tonne trucks—when corporation tax and labour costs are taken into account—are higher elsewhere? In the Netherlands, costs are 50 per cent. higher; in Belgium, 68 per cent.; and, in France, 35 per cent. The assumptions of that ridiculous article have not been made public, because it costs more to run companies in continental Europe.

Mrs. Shephard: I would not advise the hon. Gentleman to tell that to the average British trucker.


He might regret it. The Minister of Transport—normally a sensible man—told the Freight Transport Association a month ago that British hauliers were not suffering any serious disadvantage. I would like to read to him a letter faxed to me today by Mr. David Burton who runs a small transport company in Whissonsett, in Norfolk. He said:
I am contacting you for help and to lobby this Government regarding the terrible plight of UK hauliers. As you are aware we cannot compete with unfair competition from continental hauliers due to this Government's insistence of the fuel duty escalator. I and my wife have built up from nothing to a profitable company employing 17 employees from a small rural village in mid Norfolk over the last 20 years. This is now very much in jeopardy due to vast differences in fuel duty. We have in the last month lost an valuable contract running to Spain due to unfair competition and also another contract to Holland and Germany is under scrutiny by our customer, asking for a reduction in rates which will be the final straw. We are desperate for help and cannot survive much longer.
I appeal to the Minister to listen to Mr. Burton—an authentic voice from the smaller end of the business—to reduce the tax burden and to play his part in saving 50,000 jobs.

Mr. Matthew Taylor: The right hon. Lady's concern for that haulier and the lorry industry—and for motorists in general—is clear. Will she make it clear whether the policy of her party is now to end the fuel escalator, and whether the shadow Chancellor has agreed that with her?

Mrs. Shephard: I have said that we think the Government should do as we did with whisky duty and review the global effects of their policy on the haulage industry and reduce the tax burden. That is what they should do—they are in charge.

Mr. Christopher Leslie: The right hon. Lady is developing policy on the hoof. Is she proposing that we freeze duty on diesel, or cut the duty?

Mrs. Shephard: Clearly, the hon. Gentleman was not listening—I suppose that he was bemused by the glamour pics. What I said earlier was what I just said to the hon. Member for Truro and St. Austell (Mr. Taylor). I could hardly put the position more clearly. He may recall that we voted against the increase in the Budget.
The Government have increased road taxes, affecting every man, woman and child in the country. That is despite their promise that there would be no tax increases under Labour. The travelling public—the people who were promised immediate benefits under Labour—are entitled to ask why. Clearly, despite the Government's desire to hide behind a green smokescreen, this is not being done for environmental reasons.
The stark fact is that, following the Budget, the Government's tax take from road users will increase this year by £1.6 billion. Spending on transport is to be cut for each of the next three years, as the Department's own figures confirm. Thus, there will be no investment in public transport to provide a choice for motorists, as promised in "Consensus for Change."
The then Labour transport spokesman, now Secretary of State for International Development, said that her intention was that people should be
caught in traffic jams when driving to work to see clean fast buses whizzing by and determined to leave their cars at home.

She was right on one count. We have the jams—but where are the buses?
As John Dawson of the AA said,
The Chancellor's environmental excuse for hitting motorists is wearing very thin.
He said that the Budget is
a purely revenue generating measure which impacts most on less well off families and those living in rural areas without any realistic public transport alternatives. No country in Europe spends so little of what it takes from motorists on its transport system.

Dr. George Turner: Does the change in policy that the right hon. Lady is making on the fuel escalator—which, I understood, was introduced by the Conservative Government for environmental reasons—mean that she is abandoning a commitment to achieve the environmental objectives, or does she have alternatives to suggest? Many of us who represent rural areas understand the concerns that she is raising. The county that we both represent has more to lose—literally—in land mass by global warming than most.

Mrs. Shephard: The hon. Gentleman makes his point, whatever it may be. I have made it absolutely clear why we voted against the Government's punitive increase in diesel duty. I remind him that he, too, has many hauliers in his constituency.

Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: Surely the Government are misunderstanding the point. It is not that lorries will cover fewer miles, but that companies will flag out to other European countries. They will carry on transporting, but far more cheaply than is possible in this country.

Mrs. Shephard: From what we understand from the Minister, the Government's policy is to attract foreign companies here to add to our pollution and congestion. The Government cannot claim that the extra tax that they have raised is used to reduce congestion and bottlenecks. Last July's roads review slashed the roads programme from more than 140 targeted improvements to only 37, and it will be up to a decade before many of those are completed.

Mrs. Anne Campbell: May I take it that the Conservative party no longer supports the international agreement to curb carbon dioxide emissions? If so, what measures would the right hon. Lady put in place that would have the same effect as our taxation measures?

Mrs. Shephard: The hon. Lady should listen to the case that I am making. The Government are imposing swingeing tax increases on road users. They have made cuts in overall transport spending, depriving road users of public transport alternatives. They slashed the roads programme, which would have reduced congestion and pollution.
The local transport settlement amounted to a real-terms decrease in cash for local authority road schemes, and that is set to continue for the next three years. The December survey by the Institution of Civil Engineers found that the maintenance backlog had increased by 40 per cent. since 1996 and now stands at a total of £160 for every vehicle licence holder.
The Opposition support an integrated approach to transport. We agree that we must make the best use of what we have, in the way that is most sustainable for the environment. We support the responsible use of the car and responsible roads investment to reduce congestion and pollution. When in office, we invested £26 billion in roads and nearly the same amount in public transport. Our policies levered in more private funds to increase public transport choices.
The Government have broken their pre-election promises on transport. There have been no immediate benefits for the travelling public. Their answer to transport problems is to tax the motorist off the road and to put hauliers out of business. Their swingeing stealth tax increases are hitting every man, woman, child and business in the country. They are cutting investment in public transport and our roads. They are creating a standstill Britain. I urge the House to support the motion.

The Minister of Transport (Dr. John Reid): I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
commends the Government for taking a far-sighted and more integrated approach to roads policy than the previous administration; notes that the previous Government's 'predict and provide' approach to road building has been discredited and that the present Government has instead taken a realistic and practical approach based on the five criteria of integration, the economy, the environment, safety and accessibility; notes further that the previous Conservative Government's grandiose but impractical wish-list of schemes for which funding was not available has been replaced by a targeted programme of improvements, all of which can be started within seven years; welcomes its increased and more rationally-based spending on roads maintenance; and applauds the Government for tackling the problems of congestion and pollution, thereby ensuring that the road transport system operates for the benefit of individual people and the UK economy as a whole.
I strongly deprecate these attacks on my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister. He is a sensitive soul and will no doubt have been deeply offended by the remarks of the right hon. Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard). If she chooses in future to start a debate with an attack on my right hon. Friend for his obsession, as she put it, with media opportunities, she should advise her colleague, the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin), not to send letters round to all Conservative Members saying:
Central office will be using the debate to mount a major media operation.
That may be the pot calling the kettle black.

Mr. Andrew Lansley: rose—

Dr. Reid: I have not actually said anything yet, but I will give way to the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Lansley: I thought that it might be unwise to wait until the right hon. Gentleman had said something. As he purports to understand the road haulage industry, can he tell me how much it costs to fill a 1,000 litre tank with diesel in the United Kingdom and in Belgium?

Dr. Reid: I cannot give the exact cost, but I have looked into the matter and I can use the same example

used by the hon. Member for North Essex in the weekend newspapers, and give the costs for 50 trucks of 38 tonnes each, assuming that they are flagged out and paying all the relevant costs in the United Kingdom, France, Belgium and the Netherlands respectively. We are entitled to make that comparison. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman asked me a question on a subject in which he purports to be interested, so he should listen to the reply.
For a fleet of 50 38-tonne trucks, if we include the social costs, national insurance, taxation, corporation tax, employees' costs, fuel and vehicle excise duty, the additional cost in France, as compared with the United Kingdom, is about £425,000 a year; in the Netherlands, about £600,000; and in Belgium, about £800,000.
I take the competitiveness of the road haulage industry extremely seriously—I shall meet representatives of the industry next Tuesday and will be pleased to listen to them and to discuss the industry's future—I understand that it is a fiercely competitive world and that there is overcapacity in the United Kingdom; but let us not exaggerate to the extent of blaming all the problems with competitiveness on the fuel escalator or on VED. We need a balance if we are to do justice to the industry.

Mr. James Gray: rose—

Dr. Reid: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would allow me to read the first sentence of my speech. I intend to start at the beginning, which is always a good place to start.
I listened with attention and admiration to the right hon. Member for South-West Norfolk. I listened with attention for any mention whatever of the previous Government, whose legacy was our starting point, and with admiration because of her sheer oral dexterity in managing to speak for 25 minutes without mentioning that Government. There was no hint of self-criticism, no shred of remorse and not even a suspicion of guilt.
Let me remind the House of the starting point of the Labour Government's challenge on roads and transport. We inherited an awful legacy from the previous Government. We inherited road traffic set to grow by more than 33 per cent. over the next 20 years, and congestion, costed by the Confederation of British Industry at £20 billion per annum to business, set to double over the next 20 years. We inherited roads that kill or seriously injure more than 45,000 people a year. We inherited roads that add substantially to local air pollution, hastening the deaths of thousands of vulnerable people each year. Perhaps above all, we inherited no choice in public transport—a system in which all non-road transport had been allowed to decline for two decades. Those two decades saw reduced bus usage, reduced rail freight, reduced rail patronage and, above all, a road infrastructure that by every statistic issued even by the then Conservative Government was in the worst state of repair of any roads since records began.

Mr. Hilton Dawson: My right hon. Friend mentioned the legacy of 18 years of Conservative Government. In my constituency, we have the legacy of a quarter of a century of Tory rule in Lancaster and the interminable Tory years in Wyre. Is my right hon. Friend aware of the problems caused by the scandalous condition of the moss roads network which blights the entire rural community in the Wyre district?


Is he aware of the appalling condition of bridges throughout Lancashire and of the desperate need for the Heysham-M6 link, which the previous Tory Member of Parliament resisted for so many years?

Dr. Reid: My hon. Friend makes his point well, and we and the wider nation are now aware of it. What was the Tories' policy to tackle the problems? Was it a plan for the future? Was it the development of public transport services? Was it the provision of choice? No. It was to produce every year an ever-lengthening wish list of roads—roads that were never funded, timetabled or finished, because they were never started. I shall remind the House of that cruel deceit that was perpetrated annually on the people of this country by the previous Conservative Government.

Mr. John MacGregor: If the right hon. Gentleman really believes that—it is a travesty of what happened, and I hope if I catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to make that clear—why has he slashed the roads programme, substantially reduced expenditure and cut the transport programme generally?

Dr. Reid: I shall give the right hon. Gentleman an example—the House may find this illuminating—of the fantasy league of roads that was produced every year by the Conservative Government. In 1990, which was around the time that the right hon. Gentleman was Secretary of State for Transport, the Conservatives' wish list had 500 roads on it. They boasted proudly that it was costed at £30 billion, but it was funded only up to £1.26 billion. That was a deceit, because it was a pretence that—

Several hon. Members: rose—

Dr. Reid: Conservative Members are very keen and I can see some of the young bulls getting up. They will get their chance in the ring in a moment. The Conservative Government pretended that they could build £30 billion worth of roads with £1.26 billion of funding.

Mr. Bernard Jenkin: Why cut it then?

Dr. Reid: It was the Conservative Government, as a gesture towards the real world, who cut the list between 1990 and 1995 from 500 roads to 250 and, finally, two years ago, to 150. They were the only Government in history to cut paper roads faster than they were building actual roads.

Mr. Stephen Day: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way to a 50-year-old bull. I feel as if he is waving a red rag at me, because my constituents do not recognise the description of the previous Government's so-called wish list. Can he explain to me why a road that was a third built under the previous Government has had its eastern and western sections cancelled by this Government? That was not a mirage of a road, because a third of it is there. Can we please have the other two sections?

Dr. Reid: Because of the delicate way in which the hon. Gentleman put his point, I shall look at it and see what can be done. [HON. MEMBERS: "Ah!"] I said that I

shall look at it. The reality is that we have changed the policy and the programme because we are not prepared to deceive people.
The policy that we inherited was one of increasing congestion, with its associated costs and inconvenience, increasing pollution with its increasing damage to health, and increasing intellectual paralysis, as the Tory Government stood like rabbits transfixed in the headlights of a million oncoming juggernauts. I cannot pretend that we will turn that mess around overnight. The transport system is like a supertanker and it cannot do a pirouette. I realise that our transportation system is inadequate: it could not be otherwise because it is still largely the product of the legacy that were left. Inevitably, we have to deal with that. Although change will take time, we have already started with some success.
If congestion on our roads is to be tackled, we need to increase the amount of freight carried by rail. Under this Government, for the first time in more than quarter of a century, we have increased rail freight by 12 per cent. For the first time for more than 25 years, we now have more rail freight year on year—12 per cent. more last year and 16 per cent. more so far this year.

Sir George Young: rose—

Dr. Reid: I shall give way to the right hon. Gentleman. As the originator and developer of congestion charging, he is entitled to come to the Dispatch Box.

Sir George Young: For sheer effrontery, it would be difficult to match what the right hon. Gentleman has just said. The increase in freight by rail was secured by privatising the rail system, a policy that the Labour party did all it could to obstruct.

Dr. Reid: For the first time in 25 years, in the first year of this Government, rail freight increased. Part of that, last year and this, was no doubt the result of privatisation. Part of it was because of the political backing and the money put into infrastructure grants for rail freight as a direct policy of this Government to reduce congestion on roads.

Mr. Simon Burns: How much?

Dr. Reid: A 16 per cent. increase in the first six months of this year—

Mr. Burns: Of what?

Dr. Reid: In tonnes per kilometre of freight carried on the railways. I shall send the hon. Gentleman a note and an abacus to make it easier for him.
If the waste and inconvenience of traffic jams are to be reduced, we must offer people a choice.

Mr. Jenkin: rose—

Dr. Reid: I will give way if the hon. Gentleman will allow me to finish a paragraph. I may get through one yet.
If the waste and inconvenience of traffic jams are to be reduced, we must offer people a choice, a real alternative to using the car. Over the past three years there has been a choice. Use of railways has increased—as the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) said,


there has been a 25 per cent. increase in passengers—and there has been a reversal of the decline in bus passenger numbers in many areas. If crowded inner-city roads are to be improved, we must encourage the use of buses, and, for the first time in decades, the Government have begun to halt that decline and to turn it around.
We are making progress, and, unlike the previous Government, we have provided resources commensurate with the task of encouraging and developing public and private sector public transport systems. We have increased funding for capital maintenance of trunk roads by 50 per cent., from £200 million to £300 million, and we will end the decline of the condition of the trunk road network.
We will increase funding for making better use of that network by 60 per cent. by 2001–02. We have established a £50 million safety budget for small trunk road safety schemes, and a new programme of targeted improvements. We are committed to start a realistic programme of 37 schemes costing £1.4 billion within seven years, and we set out the relevant dates last December.

Mr. MacGregor: indicated dissent.

Dr. Reid: The right hon. Gentleman may laugh, but when he was Secretary of State, he presided over 500 schemes that had starting dates ranging from any time between now and the millennium after next.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Dr. Reid: I must give way to the right hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. MacGregor).

Mr. MacGregor: The Minister must know that the £1.4 billion is to be spent over seven years. We spent almost that amount on new road schemes in a single year.

Dr. Reid: The right hon. Gentleman was not spending the same amount every year as we are spending over seven years. It is true that we have, for two reasons, diverted our emphasis from building new roads to road maintenance. First, we discovered—as did the previous Government—that we cannot work on a predict-and-provide basis, and that we cannot build our way out of congestion. Secondly, the dreadful state of the roads means that we will pay more in the long term by failing to maintain our roads in the short term than we would if we spent a decent amount of money on them. We have reallocated resources, and we make no apology for that.
Unlike the previous Government, we have made sure that every target road is funded and that we are capable of delivering it. We have been especially keen to construct bypasses. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where?"] My first statement as Minister of Transport was made two and a half days after I was appointed, and I was delighted to announce a programme that included 19 bypasses—almost four times as many in a single statement as the previous Government declared during their final four years in office. My statement included three bypasses shelved by the previous Government that I had reinstated. I think that every hon. Member would agree that bypasses are beneficial.

Dr. George Turner: I hope that I do not impose on the mood of generosity that my right hon. Friend has been

displaying, but he will know that my constituents were promised a flyover at the Hardwick roundabout near King's Lynn. The promise was repeated for 14 years, but the flyover was never delivered. I respect the Government's honesty, and, although the pie-in-the-sky flyover is not to appear yet, my constituents will welcome the fact that the Government have said that there will be a flyover. May I tell my constituents that there will be a start on the project during this Parliament?

Dr. Reid: Before every hon. Member intervenes with a local bypass suggestion, let me remind my hon. Friend of what I have said before: if hon. Members have a specific case to raise, would they write to me about it? My hon. Friend can certainly commend to his constituents the honesty of the Government.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Dr. Reid: I will give way to the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin), but it must be the last intervention. I must make some progress.

Mr. Jenkin: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. Naturally, we welcome the bypasses that he is building, but nine bypasses over seven years pale into insignificance against the 160 plus that we built during our 18 years in office. The Government are failing to live up to the expectations that they generated when they stood for office two years ago.

Dr. Reid: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comment. However, we are building 19 bypasses, not nine. Those 19 were announced in a single statement.

Mrs. Virginia Bottomley: rose—

Dr. Reid: I have to make some progress.

Mr. Gray: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Minister has been on his feet for 20 minutes to speak on a motion about the Government's road policies without yet having mentioned the Government's road policies. Is not that a disgraceful waste of Back-Bench Members' time?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Minister has taken a large number of interventions, which do not help him to make progress on his speech. Points of order of that sort only slow down the whole process.

Dr. Reid: Indeed, Mr. Deputy Speaker; that has ensured that I take no more interventions.
Unlike the previous Government, we have a coherent strategy, and it was set out in our White Paper in July last year. We are establishing integrated local transport strategies as well as national ones. We base our approach on partnership. There will be partnership with local authorities, to whom we are prepared to hand over decision making on 40 per cent. of trunk roads and we shall ensure that they have the resources to back those decisions. There will be partnership with the private sector; we have already announced three design, build, finance and operate trunk road projects. That brings us to the meat of the subject, about which the hon. Member for


North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) asked. Those projects are for the A13 in east London, the Al in Yorkshire and the A2-M2 in Kent; they are designed to harness the energies of both the public and private sectors.
As further evidence of that partnership, I am pleased to announce today the go-ahead for a private initiative project to fund the construction of the A 130 bypass in Essex. The Government will provide £92 million to Essex county council to help fund construction on the A130. The poor reliability of the existing road has made it difficult for south-east Essex to attract business, investment and jobs. The scheme demonstrates that central and local government can work together effectively. It is integration in action: improving transport, aiding local regeneration, improving safety and creating jobs.
Apart from the differences that I have outlined, I hope that there are points on which the Government and the Opposition can agree. Streetworks are among the largest blights on Britain's roads. People are sick and tired of the disruption and inconvenience of prolonged streetworks. We intend to act on that and have made it plain that we shall authorise local authorities to penalise utilities or contractors for work that is overdue. We therefore entirely support the thrust of the private Member's Bill promoted by the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mr. Fraser). We want to hold consultations on the mechanics of any such legislation to ensure that we have the best and most effective mechanism to minimise the disruption caused by streetworks.
The terms of the hon. Gentleman's Bill would pre-empt that desire. However, I am glad to tell the House that the hon. Gentleman and I have held fruitful discussions and he has assured me that he is willing to co-operate in taking account of those points and I am hopeful that we can find a way forward. In any event, we want to act as speedily and effectively as possible to reduce the disruption and inconvenience of prolonged streetworks.

Mr. Christopher Fraser: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Dr. Reid: In view of my direct reference to the hon. Gentleman's Bill, the House would expect me to give way to him.

Mr. Fraser: I am most grateful to the Minister for his comments on my Bill. I hope that it will be one step in a positive direction for Government support on a matter that currently has all-party support; we shall continue to work on that matter.

Dr. Reid: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that note of all-party consensus, because in other areas the Government are prepared to take the hard choices that the Opposition are no longer willing to face. We have provided a new mechanism for reducing congestion, while providing a new income stream for transport initiatives. Congestion charging will provide local authorities with powerful new tools to tackle congestion, both through the charges themselves and through the additional transport investment that the income from the charges will allow them to fund. The right hon. Member for South-West Norfolk attacked congestion charging in her speech. I have to tell her that I cannot claim all the credit for that idea. Credit where credit is due: the concept was invented

and developed by the Conservatives, by no less a person than the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire. The 1995 Green Paper stated that the Conservative Government held
a presumption in favour of legislation
on congestion charging. I am not so churlish as to deny the Conservatives the credit that is due to them, but am rather taken aback by their apparent modesty in claiming their birthright on congestion charges.
I was even more surprised to read the robust comments of the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Ottaway). In debate on the Greater London Authority Bill he said that the Conservative party did not rule out the possibility, at some time in the future, subject to consultation, of having a look at congestion charging. It is not as if Opposition Members know where they stand on that issue. I am reminded of the words of Churchill about Baldwin' s Administration:
They have decided to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity and all powerful to be impotent.
That just about sums up the Opposition's approach to some of the issues that they have raised today.
The right hon. Lady referred also to the haulage industry, and particularly to vehicle excise duty and fuel. I assure the House that we recognise the impact that taxation can have on competitiveness and profitability. That is why we must strike a balance between legitimate environmental concerns and the transport needs of the industry. I shall listen carefully to what the Road Haulage Association representatives have to say when I meet them next Tuesday. However, we firmly believe that we can best help the industry—and particularly hauliers—by creating a climate of sustainable economic growth and long-term investment.
Let us examine some of the Budget measures. We have reduced main corporation tax to 30 per cent. and small companies corporation tax to 20 per cent. Moreover, from 1 April 2000, companies with profits of up to £10,000 will pay corporation tax of only 10 per cent. Companies with profits of up to £50,000 will benefit from relief given to ease the transition from the new starting rate to the 20 per cent. rate. Employees of haulage businesses will benefit from the new 10p starting rate of income tax from this April and employers will benefit from reduced national insurance contribution levels from 2001.
Those are only the general initiatives; the Budget also contained specific measures for hauliers. We have frozen road duty levels for 98 per cent. of all lorries—I thought that the Opposition would applaud that move. The reduction in VED for cleaner lorries has doubled from £500 to £1,000. The duty rates on ultra-low sulphur diesel have been reduced relative to ordinary diesel and the duty rates on road fuel gases have been cut by no less than 29 per cent.—one of the biggest ever cuts in duty.
The Opposition's suggestion that the Budget does nothing for haulage firms is a grotesque misrepresentation of the facts. It is all about balance. Vehicles with an 11.5-tonne drive axle weight—to which the Opposition like to refer—cause significant road damage. That is why their road duty rates were set as they were, although we froze 98 per cent. of other rates.
The Opposition are also suffering from amnesia about the fuel duty escalator. I remind the House that the previous Government introduced the fuel duty escalator


in 1993 and committed themselves to maintaining it until 2000. The right hon. Lady accused us of placing a burden on industry of 6 per cent. a year. She seems to have forgotten that 5 per cent. was imposed by the Conservatives and only 1 per cent. by Labour. We made that imposition in recognition of our need to act if we are to continue to lead the world on climate change.
As for the firms that are moving abroad to avoid the so-called excessive burdens, I gave the comparative figures for the whole cost earlier in the debate. I admit that it is a complex matter: I do not suggest for a minute that it is not possible to engineer a formula that would achieve savings. I want to talk to the industry about that and other matters. However, international haulage firms with 50 38-tonne lorries based in the Netherlands and Belgium—the countries with which we are invited to make a comparison—will face costs additional to the levels that I outlined earlier.
In view of the Conservatives' declared opposition to the fuel duty escalator and VED rates, I have done their Front-Bench spokesmen the courtesy of spending time reading through the speeches that Conservative Members made in government, so that I can consider their criticisms and how publicly they voiced them. Since Norman Lamont introduced the fuel duty escalator, there have been eight Budget debates and a huge number of transport debates. Not once during those years did tonight's Opposition spokespersons express a scintilla of criticism.
In the Budget debate of March 1993—the Budget that introduced the fuel duty escalator—the right hon. Member for South-West Norfolk hailed the Chancellor's statement as a Budget for business. She not only acquiesced in that Budget, but lauded it.

Mr. Jenkin: What was the price then?

Dr. Reid: I am coming to the hon. Gentleman. In the debate on the Budget of November 1993, the hon. Member for North Essex, who will wind up for the Opposition tonight, waxed lyrical about the Chancellor's weight and stature, the heaviness of his task and, above all, his courage and the toughness of his decisions. In that Budget, which was lauded by the hon. Gentleman, the Chancellor increased the fuel duty escalator by 66 per cent.
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should now recall the words of that Chancellor, who during that Budget statement, which both he and the right hon. Lady lauded, declared:
Any critic of the Government's tax plans who claims also to support the international agreement to curb carbon dioxide emissions will be sailing dangerously near to hypocrisy."—[Official Report, 30 November 1993; Vol. 233, c. 939.]
All we can say to the Conservatives tonight is, "Hello sailor."
On roads, as on transport in general, we have set out an agenda for a generation, a radical platform for action and a programme for progress, with which I am sure the vast majority of hon. Members are pleased and proud to be associated.

Mr. John MacGregor: I begin by declaring an interest in that I am a non-executive director of a company that has a transport subsidiary. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Well, at least that gives me an insight into the effect of the Chancellor's measures. I want to speak primarily as a former Secretary of State for Transport who had a substantial roads and road-building programme and as a Member of Parliament for a rural area who sees the damage that the Government's policies are doing. I shall focus on the roads programme.
The Minister of Transport does a good cabaret turn and has a sardonic wit, which was demonstrated in his opening remarks comparing his Government's performance with that of our Government. He could scarcely conceal the smile on his face as he quoted the figures, and I shall, I hope, demolish his case.
I am glad that we are having this debate because I have frequently spoken in the House, both as Secretary of State for Transport and, since I left office, as a Back Bencher, in favour of a major roads programme. I want to develop my case because the Government's actions are extremely dangerous for the country's future transport infrastructure.
I shall first set out the background that existed when I was Secretary of State for Transport and with which the right hon. Gentleman must now deal. As he knows, about 90 per cent. of all road traffic, both passenger and freight, consists of cars. I am all in favour of—and was myself determined to introduce—measures to change that balance, particularly for freight. I find it rather ironic that he is now claiming the credit for the current increase in rail freight, which is entirely due to the policies that I introduced in the Bill to privatise the railways, which his party completely opposed. I knew that the focus on the customer and the drive that the private sector produces would be the only way in which to achieve a switch of freight from road to rail. I am delighted that that strategy is working and that our policy achieved it.
I am in favour of as much switch as possible, but we must face the fact that, however much switch one achieves and however much one improves public transport, there will still be a substantial year-by-year growth in the use of roads by cars and lorries. We all know that many people must make essential journeys by car, especially in rural areas. Also, it is most people's aspiration to be more mobile. What is the first thing that young people want when they leave school and start to earn? About 80 per cent. want to own a car and to use it. We must face that fact as we develop transport policy.
There are two other background points. It has often occurred to me that one of the reasons why the climate is sometimes against road building and the car is that so many officials in Departments and national media commentators live and work in London. In London, the issues are entirely different because it has a good public transport network. In London, when we were in government, we spent much more on public transport than on roads. It was a different matter in rural areas, but I used to find it extraordinarily difficult to get the argument going about the needs of rural areas.
All Members of Parliament who represent rural areas know that public transport cannot replicate all the journeys that people want to make in rural areas. Therefore, a heavy emphasis must be placed on road investment in not just rural areas but many market towns


and others outside the metropolis. I have often felt that the national debate just does not mirror the real needs of people in rural areas. Any Secretary of State for Transport who travels around the country knows that the greatest representations are made on improvements to the road programme, such as bypasses, and so on. A Secretary of State for Transport ignores such representations at his peril.

Mr. Norman Baker: As a former Minister, does the right hon. Gentleman agree with the conclusion of the Standing Advisory Committee on Trunk Road Assessment, which reported to his Government, that new road infrastructure generates journeys that otherwise would not be made?

Mr. MacGregor: That intervention was absolutely splendid, because it raised just the point that I was about to address. The Tories were not building any new roads. I stopped the last proposed new road—the additional proposal on the east coast as an alternative to the A 1— because I did not think that it was necessary or desirable. It would have created what the hon. Gentleman suggested. There is a big distinction between building entirely new roads and substantial road schemes to widen and improve—not just maintain—the motorway and trunk road network, and bypasses.

Dr. George Turner: The right hon. Gentleman and I come from Norfolk, and he will know that the dualling of the All is still not complete after 30 years of waiting. Similarly, improvements to the A47 have been awaited throughout that period. Given what he has said, should not we have expected action and completion during the 18 years in which he was able to deliver?

Mr. MacGregor: The plain fact is that, when the Conservative Government came to power in 1979, no part of the All was dual carriageway. I was a Member then, and it used to take me four hours to travel from London to Norfolk. Now, the vast majority of the road is either motorway or dual carriageway, and my journey time has been halved. This Government will never implement the programme on the tiny bit left—the key part. I do not know what the hon. Gentleman is talking about. The Conservative Government made a huge improvement, but we shall not see any improvement from this Government. He knows that the major A47 Norwich southern bypass has hugely improved the position in Norfolk.
I must tell the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Dr. Turner)—I was going to make this point later—that 13 bypasses were built in my constituency while the Conservative Government were in office. [Interruption.] Most of them were not built while I was Secretary of State for Transport; I did not authorise any of them when I held that office. I worked very hard for them for my constituents outside that period in office. Two more such bypasses are needed, but they will never be built under this Government. I defend our record entirely—including in Norfolk. I am very glad that I gave way to the hon. Gentleman, because it enabled me to make a point which I hope everyone in Norfolk will recognise.

Mr. Anthony D. Wright: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. MacGregor: No, I will not give way again, because I know that many hon. Members want to speak.
On new roads, it is important to recognise that the road projects that we are talking about, the expenditure on which has been so deeply slashed by the Government, are designed for improvement of the infrastructure, and include motorway widening schemes and bypasses. If one calls bypasses new roads, okay, those are new roads, but they are highly desired by everyone in the locality and are environmentally friendly.
I want to comment on the integrated transport programme. Integrated transport is a fine-sounding phrase, but we actually promoted it during our period in office by aligning road and rail, aligning airports and so on. Much more alignment of bus and rail journeys is taking place as a result of privatisation than was ever achieved by central planning. That is evidenced by the fact that the White Paper recognises that no new road network is necessary—in other words, the road network that we established was the right one for an integrated transport planning policy.
The massive hole in the Government's integrated transport policy stems from the fact that they have devastated the road programme, thereby neglecting the one area of transport that takes 90 per cent. of the traffic. That is not what is meant by integrated transport policy. In my view, it is a disadvantageous approach to transport.
That brings me to the road programme generally. The Minister of Transport was far less than fair to my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard); she repeated the figures for expenditure undertaken during the Conservative Administration: £48 billion on transport infrastructure, of which £26 billion was spent on roads. Given that 90 per cent. of traffic goes by road, the fact that just over half of our spending was devoted to roads shows that we did not have an undue bias towards them, but that we acknowledged the importance of expenditure on them.
The balance has now gone completely the other way; that is devastatingly serious.

Mr. Gordon Prentice: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. MacGregor: No, I will not give way.
In my last year as Secretary of State for Transport, we were spending just over £2 billion on the road programme—the Highways Agency programme. By 1998–99, that had reduced to £1.3 billion and it will reduce in the next three years, although road maintenance will increase. However, the increase in road maintenance in the next three years will bring back the relevant figures, in real terms, to precisely what I was spending on that work in 1993. I do not understand how the Minister of Transport can criticise us for neglecting road maintenance when he is claiming a great deal of credit for the increase that he is making, which will simply bring us straight back to where we were.

Mr. Prentice: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. MacGregor: No; I am sorry, but I will not give way. [Interruption.] Well, I will give way in a moment. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] All right; in fairness to my hon. Friends, I will not.
Therefore spending on road maintenance has not been substantially increased. Moreover, new road projects—bypasses, improvements to motorways and so on—


have been cut almost to nothing. Four hundred national road schemes were carried through in the period between 1979 and 1997–400 in 18 years. The Government are planning 37 schemes over seven years. That is the difference. It would take 70 years, under the Government's programme, to achieve what the Conservatives did. That is why the Minister was wrong in the comparisons that he drew.
The worrying aspect of all this is that the combination of all those factors will lead to increasing congestion on our roads and increasing uncompetitiveness, as well as a decline in road maintenance in local authority areas. That brings me to the subject of local authorities.

Mr. Prentice: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. MacGregor: No.
On detrunking, I support the Government. Their proposals to detrunk a substantial number of roads and pass them back to local authorities make sense. I often noticed that some national road schemes had less of a priority at local level than the local road scheme which failed to be included in that national programme. I therefore perfectly understand the principle of detrunking. However, it makes sense only if money goes with it, and I believe that there are only one or two new road projects in this year's transport settlement, the expenditure on which has almost reduced in real terms. Eighty schemes were requested—normal local authority schemes, not detrunking schemes. If one adds the detrunking schemes and examines the programme that the Government are offering, detrunking is a poisoned chalice for local authorities. No funding is going with the programme, so nothing will happen and all those road schemes will be frozen. The Government will try to blame the local authorities, but the fault will lie with the Government.
I shall say a word or two about DBFO—design, build, finance and operate—schemes and motorway tolling. I introduced the DBFOs and I am in favour of them. The Minister has just announced such a scheme—the A130—which I welcome, as I know the great need for it. However, I am worried about DBFOs. When I initiated the programme, I intended that in due course we would be able to introduce motorway tolling. The DBFO schemes to improve motorways would be financed by real income from motorway tolling. That is extremely important.
If the Government concentrate all new road schemes on DBFO and claim the credit—justifiably—for the private sector involvement, they will pile up enormous public expenditure later on the DBFO schemes. Those should be accounted for separately. Motorway tolling would provide genuine money to pay for such schemes, so there would be a genuine private finance initiative, genuinely costed and properly implemented. There is a serious danger if all future road schemes, or most of them, are done by DBFO. I hope that the Government will look to that.
I make no apology for having argued for motorway tolling. I issued a Green Paper proposing it, and I still think that it is the right way to improve our motorways. It gets revenue in to provide a better service. When the technology is available, which is the problem at present, the policy should be pursued. I regret that the Government

are not putting enough initiative and push behind attempts to improve the technology. Congestion charging is entirely different and gives rise to many more problems than motorway tolling.
On the fuel duty escalator, I shall add one or two points to those that my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk made. The environmental background to the introduction of the fuel duty escalator in 1993 has changed. There have been huge reductions in toxic emissions as a result of catalytic converters and other improvements in technology. Toxic emissions have fallen by 30 per cent. since 1993. That is a much more effective contribution to the global warming target than the fuel duty escalator will achieve.
Reducing toxic emissions acts directly on the issue. The fuel duty escalator has outlived its usefulness. It is producing tiny, if any, environmental benefits. All the revenue coming in from it is going not on environmental expenditure, but elsewhere. Let us admit that it is a means for the Chancellor to raise revenue for other purposes, and it does not achieve its objective.

Mr. Graham Stringer: rose—

Mr. MacGregor: No, I am not giving way.
I strongly support the Government in their endeavours to reduce toxic emissions and in the improvement of the technology of cars. I would happily endorse any programme to pull in polluting cars, impose heavy fines for lorries and so on. I believe that what the Chancellor introduced in a puny way could be developed further. The vehicle excise duty reduction on 13 types of car out of several hundred is another example of a flashy new scheme pulled out of the hat to look good, but which does not amount to much. I hope it will be built on, because it is the right way to tackle matters.

Dr. Reid: The scheme is a start.

Mr. MacGregor: A pretty modest start, if I may say so.
The fuel duty escalator is not the way to deal with the environmental issue, because it is causing more harm than the environmental benefits that it may produce. It is causing huge harm to rural areas, people on low incomes and those who depend on their car. People are coming to us in droves to complain about the Chancellor's Budget, as is the road haulage industry. It is time to end the fuel duty escalator.
My conclusion is simple. While the Government speak about an integrated transport policy, the country is seeing the results in practice and it does not like what it sees, as the recent BBC poll showed. The Chancellor talks of improving the nation's investment in infrastructure, but is destroying it by not putting anything like enough money into it. Anyone in business knows that one should be spending about 10 per cent. of the value of one's capital assets every year on their renewal, or certainly as much as depreciation. We have a capital asset here of £230 million, but we are spending practically nothing on maintaining and renewing it. Not only is that damaging the economy, but it is already clear that the electorate has tumbled to the fact that the Government's transport policy is failing the nation.

Mrs. Diana Organ: There is now widespread consensus that the past road policy of simply building, or wishing to build, more and more roads was not sustainable, could never be the answer to traffic growth and congestion, and would not in itself provide efficient transportation for people, goods and services.
The Conservative Government's policy was dominated by deregulation, privatisation and a road building frenzy. The damaging consequences of that policy are starkly illustrated in rural areas such as the Forest of Dean.
First, the 1985 bus deregulation led to the decimation and fragmentation of bus public transport, so that by 1997 even the main market towns in the Forest of Dean were not connected to one another by a bus service. That forced many rural dwellers on low incomes to sacrifice much in order to maintain a car on the road. If they did not do that, they were at the mercy of and wholly dependent on a dwindling public transport network, or they ended up isolated.
The other strand of the previous Administration's policy was privatisation, which had an equally detrimental effect. In 1992, a short but strategically crucial section of road was privatized—the Severn bridge. In that deal, tolls were allowed to be increased greatly and could be collected one way only. That was carried out without consultation, without public representation from local communities and without a study or a consideration of the impact that that would have on regional traffic flows and movement.
The main impact was on the roads of the Forest of Dean. They have become rat runs for lorries avoiding the tolls. Any heavy goods vehicle travelling from the west midlands or east of Gloucester to south Wales looks to those roads as a rat run. A regular census shows that, between 1992 and 1998, there has been an increase of more than 10 per cent. in the number of heavy goods vehicles of 3.5 tonnes and over trying to avoid the tolls. That is an extra 100 vehicles a day. Roughly 40,000 extra vehicles a year go through village communities along the A48, A40 and A4136, and often parts of those roads are unsuitable to such traffic, which causes noise, damages buildings, affects the quality of life and threatens the safety of pedestrians.
The third part of the previous Conservative Government's predict and provide policy of more and more roads was equally threatening. There had been a proposal in the early 1990s to build a multi-million pound A40 extension from Gloucester westwards. That would have brought extra development to the river Severn floodplain, increasing the possibility of flood damage, and taking away many wonderful water meadows and sites of valuable flora. Fortunately, that scheme faced widespread opposition and, thankfully, was rejected.
This Government's integrated approach to transport has already shown real benefits and is a realistic way forward in the Forest of Dean. The integrated approach is inclusive. It consults, but realises that local communities can often solve their own transport problems and become effective.
Children in Berry Hill primary school looked at the problem that many of them had of travelling to and from school in cars because their parents were concerned about their safety. The children questioned each other about their journeys, plotted a route for a bus to take them to

and from school, and then took the initiative, writing to bus companies to ask whether they would be interested in running a bus service. With a little funding from the local authority, the scheme went ahead. Now, that school has a bus service which the children say is enjoyable and a real social opportunity for them, and which has reduced early morning congestion.
The Government recognise that local solutions can often be valuable, and their policy of allowing local authorities to draw up local transport plans, setting out their proposals for the management, maintenance and development of local roads, works. My local authority, Gloucestershire, thinks that that is definitely a better approach. The plans not only must be sustainable, but must involve all local parties in their execution.
In October 1998 I carried out a constituency-wide consultation on the Government's transport White Paper. It was widely recognised that all community parties must be involved, as should the planning authority, which has a major role to play on transport issues. Where developments are sited, how big they are and their impact on traffic flows and transportation are crucial.
A legacy of housing's predict and provide days was a proposal to build 2,000 houses on green-field sites around the village settlements of Sedbury and Tutshill. That area is close to Chepstow, the M4 and the Severn bridge. The present Government's housing policy says that new housing must be sustainable, centred on economic centres and it must follow the sequential principle. Those criteria meant that the proposal was rejected, thankfully—principally because it was recognised that 2,000 new homes would generate a vast increase in commuter traffic. People would have moved out of the urban areas of Avon and south Wales to those new homes and, consequently, commuted daily by road to their jobs in those centres.
We have inherited a lot of failures in the Forest of Dean, but they are being addressed. The Labour Government have invested £50 million in rural transport and, in the Budget, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced a 20 per cent. increase in that spending—it will rise to more than £120 million over the next two years. That is a significant increase on previous levels and the rise in bus fuel duty rebate will also help.
The increase has already had a significant impact on rural public transport in the Forest of Dean, delivering 11 new bus services, and, for the first time, we have a Sunday service to Gloucester. It has also led to the appointment of a transport broker and co-ordinator who will consider how rural areas can develop the increasing numbers of innovative community transport and car-sharing schemes.
In addition, the announcement of a national half-price concessionary fare scheme for pensioners has been widely welcomed by the 29 per cent. of my constituents who qualify. I hope, as they do, that it can be delivered as soon as possible.
Instead of building more roads, the Government have changed the focus of road investment and their top priority is maintaining and managing existing roads and getting them to work better. Our major concern is safety, because 70 per cent. of fatal accidents occur on rural roads. Excessive speed is the main cause of a third of those accidents. In our surgeries every week we all hear the distressing tales that are brought to us by the relatives of victims of such accidents.
The A48 had a dreadful history of accidents. A route study of the road was undertaken because it was identified as atypical, due to the accident level. The Highways Agency made available £268,000 and a comprehensive package was introduced, including speed cameras, high-friction surfacing on the approaches to bridges, warning signs, gateway signs for villages, white lining to upgrade laning and the giving of directions and other traffic-calming measures.
The results of those measures have been phenomenal and very impressive. Accident and casualty statistics have come down, to 35 accidents and 50 casualties in 1998 against a high of 64 accidents in 1989 and 68 casualties in 1992. A similar programme has been outlined for the A40, in order to improve safety on that road. I hope that that programme reaps the same benefits.
This year's local transport capital settlement for Gloucestershire is the highest yet, with a large element of the £9.25 million going on improved maintenance on those important roads. There is a £2 million package for safety schemes, such as that for the A48. Although that allocation is generous, I must make my plea for the Government to look favourably on bids to improve the A4136, which is a prime access route to the heart of the forest and its industries. We were unsuccessful with our £11 million major scheme, and I understand why—it does not come within Government policy—but I hope that future bids from Gloucestershire for sections of that road to be upgraded, for the safety of road users and pedestrians alike, will be treated favourably.
The A48 and A40 are trunk roads that have been identified in the trunk roads review for possible detrunking. This is a complex and emotive issue, and there will need to be widespread consultations—which did not happen under the previous Government on the Severn bridge changes—on the implications of detrunking those routes and how that will affect the communities and the economy of the Forest of Dean, which rely heavily on manufacturing.
The county council was concerned that it would not obtain sufficient funding for maintenance should those roads be handed over to the local authority. It tells me that it has been seriously reassured by the discussions that it has had with the Government about the grants allocated for those roads. The officers tell me that they are happy about the funds moving across, which they say will meet their requirements. That offers us an opportunity to control and manage the heavy goods vehicles that are avoiding the Severn bridge tolls. By the imposition of weight restrictions, with exemptions for lorries accessing the Forest of Dean, we shall tackle another of the problems inherited from the previous Administration.
Transport problems will not be solved overnight: that takes time. This is a huge issue, but the Forest of Dean has already benefited from the Government's policies. They are making headway at a local level to improve transport for all the community.

Mr. Norman Baker: I welcome the opportunity to discuss roads and transport issues generally. I am pleased that the Tories have used their Opposition day for that purpose. It is pity that the debate

is not longer. However, the Tories have blotted their copybook by the words they have chosen for their motion—which is brazen, to say the least. It is a year zero motion that pretends that nothing happened between 1979 and now, and that they have no responsibility for the transport system that we have today.
Our present transport infrastructure has been built up—or not built up—over the 18 years of a Conservative Government. If the Conservatives want to maximise their influence on transport issues, they should have a little more humility and recognise that they made mistakes when they were in government. There is no indication of that in their motion. It shows their usual arrogance—the arrogance that caused them to lose the last election.
An alternative Tory motion might have been,"That this House adopts a policy of collective amnesia in respect of the years 1979 to 1997, ignores the catastrophic failure of Tory transport policy during those years, and begs for the Tory party to be allowed to reinvent itself." That is what the motion says if we read between the lines. Incredulity is the word that describes the Tories' approach.
The Conservatives talk about congestion and pollution, which they seem to be concerned about in the motion. Between 1979 and 1997, motor vehicle traffic increased every year—cumulatively by a total of 75 per cent. There was a growth of traffic for each type of vehicle, but the largest increase was in cars, at 82 per cent. In 1979, when the Tories came to power, the mileage covered by cars in the United Kingdom was 200 billion km. In 1997, that figure had reached 370 billion km, which is almost twice as much, whereas the figures for bus and motorcycle usage dropped during that period.
It is clear that under the previous Government there was an increase in traffic, congestion and pollution. If the Tories want us to take their transport policies seriously, they must acknowledge that fact and start from a new base, not from the fictional base in the motion.

Mr. Gray: What about the Government's policies?

Mr. Baker: I shall come to the Government's policies in a moment, but we are discussing the Conservative motion. If the Tories think that I am going to let them get off scot-free, given their motion, they have another think coming.
The Tories could not build their way out of a crisis. The right hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. MacGregor) made a reasonable contribution based on his experience as a former Secretary of State for Transport. However, the fact of the matter is that the Tories had a substantial road-building programme; I am happy to acknowledge that. Capital expenditure on roads was more than £50 billion between 1979 and 1997. Between 1986 and 1996, almost 1,700 km of motorway and trunk roads were completed. As the 1989 White Paper "Roads to Prosperity" stated, that was the biggest road-building programme since the Romans. Some of them were not built, as we have heard, but a considerable amount was undertaken and completed. But what has been the result of that road-building programme? It has been more congestion, more pollution and more transport problems.
We cannot build our way out of transport problems. There is no point in going on about which bypasses are not here and which trunk roads are not there; we cannot


solve transport problems by building more and more roads. I thought that all hon. Members had learned that lesson, but it seems that the Conservatives have unlearned it.
Before Conservative Members complain about the effect of the Budget on the motorist, they should bear in mind that between 1974 and 1996, according to Government figures—the last Government's figures, in fact—the real cost of motoring fell by 3.5 per cent. Over the same period, rail fares rose in real terms by 74.8 per cent. During those Tory years—and, indeed, the years of Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan—bus fares rose by 57.5 per cent. We must deal with the fundamental flaws in our transport system. Building more and more roads is an antiquated 1950s solution, which I hope the Conservatives will now reject because it simply will not work.
In an earlier intervention, I referred to the report of the Standing Advisory Committee on Trunk Road Assessment. That report demonstrated beyond doubt that building more and more roads and creating more and more road space—that includes the widening of roads, as well as the building of new roads—leads to an increase in the number of journeys that are made. People are now commuting from Reigate to Watford; they would never have done so before the M25 was built. Some hon. Members may see that as an example of freedom, but I see it merely as the undertaking of an unnecessary journey. It is a great pity that so many journeys are now made by road that were not made by road previously.

Mr. Jenkin: Is the hon. Gentleman seriously suggesting that the M25 should not have been built?

Mr. Baker: I am suggesting that its creation has led to a huge increase in the number of vehicle movements. Before it was built, I used to travel along roads close to the hon. Gentleman's constituency, I think. I used to use the Al28. Progress was slow—there were traffic jams—but the number of vehicle movements increased dramatically as soon as the M25 was built.
I shall now deal with road fuel duties. We have heard from numerous speakers about the escalator introduced by the Conservative Government. When the Conservatives are cooing to the Automobile Association about how much they sympathise with it, they should remember that between 1992–93 and 1996–97 the revenue from all duty and value-added tax on road fuel was £80 billion. During the same period, only £16.1 billion was spent on public transport. [Interruption.] If the Conservatives want to blame the Government—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): Order. Some hon. Members are interrupting the hon. Gentleman's speech, which is not allowed.

Mr. Baker: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for defending me so stoutly.
The Conservatives appear to be arguing that the present Government are taxing motorists unfairly, and using the money for other purposes. I must tell them that they did the same when they were in government. We are not allowed to use the word "hypocritical"—I believe that it is unparliamentary—but what they did then is significantly at variance with what they are saying now.

Mr. Tim Loughton: Does the hon. Gentleman not realize—I am thinking

particularly of diesel fuel duty—that by raising the escalator to such a level, and so many times, the Government are simply replacing the fumes from British lorries with fumes from Belgian, French and German lorries? There is no environmental gain whatever.

Mr. Baker: I accept that there is a problem with the fuel duty escalator as it relates to the road haulage industry. I have met Steve Norris to discuss that very issue. I think that the Government should concentrate on increasing European Union levels rather than on reducing them here, but I agree that there is a problem that must be dealt with.
Although we are debating a Conservative motion, let us waste no more time on the Conservatives. Theirs has been a catastrophic catalogue of failure—a lamentable indictment of their hopelessly ineffective and inappropriate dogma over 18 years—but let us now leave them to one side. Let us leave their great car economy—the Great Britain snarl-up; let us leave the biggest road-building programme since the Romans—the biggest traffic jam of all time—and consider the Government's roads policy.
I welcome the fact that the Government produced a White Paper on transport, and that it contained radical and good ideas. Ministers and hon. Members will appreciate that I am not averse to criticising the Government when they get it wrong, but the fact is that the Government produced a good White Paper on transport. The trouble is that not much action has followed it. The jury is still out on whether the Government will deliver everything that they said in the White Paper that they wanted to do.
Part of the problem has been that, although there has been some very good thinking in the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, its thinking has not been matched by support from elsewhere in Government. "Blair and Brown on the line"—perhaps the wrong type of Chancellor—has been offered as an excuse for delaying action in changing the Government's transport policy from road to rail.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. A trend seems to be emerging in some speeches, which I might be able to stop now. References to other hon. Members should include their constituency name or their title. Perhaps "the Prime Minister" or "the Chancellor of the Exchequer", for example, would be better terms of reference in the Chamber.

Mr. Baker: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I entirely agree with you, and apologise for making those references.
I shall be happy with the Government when they have introduced the Strategic Rail Authority. The Deputy Prime Minister—for all his commitment, and that of his Ministers, which I do not doubt—has, so far, not been able to secure parliamentary time for introduction of legislation on that authority, for which there is no substitute. Shouting at train operating companies is not a substitute for proper legislation on a strategic rail authority.
We are also still unclear about the powers of Railtrack. We still do not know what Alastair Morton will be doing, or what investment will be made in rail transport. If the Government are to turn their words into positive action, we will have to have from them some definite answers and clear action.
I acknowledge that the Budget contained some positive measures, such as the very long overdue one ending company car abuse. I was very pleased to see that. I was pleased also that the Budget contained money for rural buses.
The Budget made a start on changing vehicle excise duty. However, I agree with the right hon. Member for South Norfolk that that will go only a very short way. It is no use saying that the provision was only a first step—why not take all the steps in one go? Only 9 per cent. of cars now on the road are 1100 cc or smaller. Therefore, only one in 11 cars will benefit from the Government's VED changes. Moreover, only 5 per cent. of 1998 new car registrations were 1100 cc or smaller. Therefore, only one in 20 of those cars will benefit from the change.

Mr. David Chaytor: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the real significance of the VED changes is not the single change this year, on cars below 1100 cc, but the announcement that, next year, a completely variable VED system will be introduced? Is he aware that the new VED system has been delayed because of an argument about the best way of measuring—by engine size or emissions—a variable VED system? The Government have accepted the research and come out in favour of measuring emissions. That is why it has taken so long. As I said, the real improvement will be made next year, when the fully variable VED system is introduced.

Mr. Baker: I should like to think that the hon. Gentleman is right. However, the Government have been in power for almost two years, and I should have thought that—not just in this Budget, but in the previous one—they could have analysed the matter and proposed a proper solution. I am always suspicious of Governments who embark on reviews and consultations, as those are often used as an excuse for inaction. Nevertheless, I hope that he is right, and that we shall have some action on the matter in the next Budget.
My greatest criticism so far of the Government's transport policy is on road traffic reduction. When in opposition, many Labour Members—including the Minister for Transport in London, who is in the Chamber—were committed to real reductions in road traffic levels. There was a recognition that, for environmental, health and social reasons, we could not continue increasing the number of vehicles and vehicle miles driven on our roads.
The intellectual argument on the need to stop the increase has been won. Hundreds of Labour and other Members signed up to road traffic reduction. At the end of the previous Parliament, my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) promoted his Road Traffic Reduction Bill. Subsequently, the hon. Member for Ceredigion promoted his Road Traffic Reduction (National Targets) Bill. At the start of this Parliament, the Government were committed to road traffic reduction, but that has changed. In a written answer that I received from the Minister for Transport in London on 3 November last year, the policy changed to:
we need to reduce the rate of road traffic growth.

I am afraid that that is the Conservative policy with life breathed back into it by the new Government. In layman's terms, it means that the Government are going to deal with congestion by allowing more cars on the road doing more mileage. That is a wrong policy.
Further on in the written answer, the Minister said:
we want to see an absolute reduction in traffic in those places and streets where the greatest environmental damage is done"—[Official Report, 3 November 1998; Vol. 318, c. 458.]
The implication is that traffic levels may go down in places such as Chester, Bath or York, but overall levels of road traffic in this country will go up. That is a failed, unsustainable policy that the Government must correct. The parliamentary answers that I have received from the Minister and her colleagues in recent days have been opaque, so I should like her to tell us clearly the projections for road traffic growth during this Parliament. What is the Government's aim? Which areas will have actual reductions in traffic levels? What will the overall effect be?
Another more recent written answer on 12 January said:
Using the National Road Traffic Forecast model it is estimated that with these policies"—
set out in the previous paragraph—
in place traffic would grow by 37 per cent. by 2010 relative to 1990 vehicle kilometre levels."—[Official Report, 12 January 1999; Vol. 323, c. 189.]
That is almost identical to the previous Government's figures for growth if no action was taken. What is the Government's policy on road traffic reduction? Will the Minister guarantee that by the end of this Parliament the amount of traffic on our roads will be lower than at the moment? If she will not, she should withdraw her name from the letters and motions that she signed in the previous Parliament and accept that she was wrong. I hope that she does not have to do that. I hope that I have misunderstood the policy and there will be an absolute reduction in road traffic during this Parliament. I look forward to hearing from her on that.
To sum up, the Conservatives have a bit of a cheek in tabling the motion. They undermine their case with their words. The Government have published a White Paper, but they have not yet enacted the measures in it. We want some action before the end of this Parliament.

Mrs. Christine Butler: I sincerely thank my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport for his efforts in securing the A130 private finance initiative bid, worth £92 million for Essex. Many hon. Members, on both sides of the House, will welcome that. If I had not heard that announcement today, I would have been asking for it. My right hon. Friend's decision is right. It is the right answer to the high rate of accidents, the crushing congestion and the unremitting costs to travellers and the economy of south Essex caused by a road that amounts to nothing less than a blockade at times.
South-east Essex is heavily populated, with almost a third of a million people in 40 square miles. Essex people are some of the most enterprising in the country, but without that important road scheme our local economy could stagnate. Castle Point, Southend, Rochford and Rayleigh are aware of the problems and are getting together in a sub-regional approach to explain what we need to keep business thriving and to steer a course towards success in the region.
Road safety has not been mentioned enough in the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mrs. Organ) mentioned it, but it is worth returning to the subject. I could weep at the toll that the present A130 is having on families in Essex, many of whom are from my constituency. Any level of personal injury from road traffic accidents is unacceptable, but this road has a terrible record. The jams, bunch-ups and pile-ups all point to one solution: the scheme that my right hon. Friend the Minister has announced this evening. Some sections of the route are so narrow that one tractor might cause tailbacks for miles in the morning. My hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr. Hurst), who is sitting next to me, has probably experienced that many times on the way to his constituency. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport has listened to the arguments, and I thank him for throwing a lifeline to south Essex.
Other hon. Members want to speak, so I will not say all that I intended to say. However, I wish to refer to sustainability. The word trips easily off the tongue, but it is an important word. For the first time, we have a genuine attempt, through joined-up thinking across all Departments, to try to deliver sustainability. Those attempts should not be sneered at. We have hardly begun, and there is more to follow in legislation.
We cannot go on deciding where houses go, where major transportation corridors might be, where inward investment must locate and where jobs are created without considering all of them in parallel. Without such planning—and the tough decisions that will follow—we will get nowhere. That is a message that we have taken on board. We will deal with it in the regional plans after 1 April, when the regional development agencies start to work with the regional chambers to deliver sustainability, along with increases in GDP per capita.
To deliver a sustainable economy with more investment and more jobs—along with sustainability in the environment—is not easy. That is why it has not even been attempted before. Now it is being attempted. We should stop the snide remarks and the party politics and give credit to the Government for what they have done so far, and for the measures that we will take in the not-too-distant future.

Mr. Peter Luff: In approaching the debate, I was not sure what tone of voice to adopt—whether it should be sadness or anger. In the hope of winning the sympathy of the Minister for something that I will say later in my speech—a matter with which she is well familiar—I will adopt the tone of sadness, which I shall try to combine with honesty and brevity.
The brevity is made possible by the excellent speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. MacGregor), who said many of the things that I would have wished to say. The honesty is forced upon me by the admission that I was never comfortable with the fuel duty escalator, and I am certainly not at all comfortable with its increase and continuance under this Government. A question of straw and the camel's back comes to mind. When the back is breaking, it is time to take the straw off.
Road haulage is a big employer in my constituency. I cannot pretend that that is always particularly welcome, because of the severe environmental impact that it has on

many villages in the vale of Evesham. However, it is there, it is inevitable, it is not going away and it creates many jobs.
The modern economy is dependent on road haulage, as has been generally accepted in what has been a constructive debate. I had a visit from a haulier at my constituency surgery on Saturday, who said that it would be a good idea to organise a week-long strike of the road haulage industry—if it could be guaranteed that it would be total. For the first couple of days, the British people would say that it was wonderful that the roads were empty; on days three and four, as the supermarket shelves started to empty, they would feel rather differently; by the end of the week, they would be crying for the lorries to get back on the roads. I think that that haulier was right.
That operator told me that he is spending £500 a lorry to increase the size of the tanks, so that he will only ever have to fill up in France. He reckons that he will recoup the cost of the new tanks within two and a half journeys to and from the continent. The Chancellor should think about that. I was in Ulster last week, talking to hauliers and taxi drivers. The land border and the devaluation of the euro make the problem even worse there. I imagine that hardly any petrol or diesel is sold in Northern Ireland these days.
When a Government have got something wrong, there is no shame in admitting it. It is time for the Chancellor to admit that he has got it wrong and to reverse the changes. The Minister's clever statistics in his opening speech do not bear critical scrutiny, and the fact is that there is now a huge and unjustifiable differential.
I hope that the Government will be sympathetic to intervention in local problems where road haulage is an environmental issue, as in my constituency. I have written this week to the Deputy Prime Minister, asking him to intervene in my patch where there is a bad problem with road haulage, as three counties meet at one point and there is no effective integration. If the Government's integrated transport strategy is to mean anything at all, it should mean intervening in such situations.
Conservative Members have made the point—Labour Members may also have done so, but if so, I missed it—that the increase in petrol duties and the token reduction in vehicle excise duties will have a devastating impact on poorer motorists in rural areas.

Mr. Chaytor: Has the hon. Gentleman seen the latest research, available in the Library, by Mr. Skinner and Mr. Fergusson of the Institute of European Environmental Policy, which exhaustively analyses the impact of different policies on different categories of motorist? It proves fairly conclusively that the Government's policy of reducing the fixed costs and increasing the variable costs helps poorer motorists. I suggest that he looks at the research before making—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Luff: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I happen to agree with the spirit of what the hon. Gentleman said. I find it a little difficult to argue with the principle of reducing the fixed costs and increasing the variable costs, but it must be done in a much more meaningful way. The token reduction in vehicle excise duty will have no impact


at all on my poorer constituents. They cannot afford to change down to smaller cars, because of the capital costs involved.
There is a direct financial impact on my rural constituents, who have no realistic hope of a comprehensive bus service ever being restored to their villages, even if the odd improvements here and there are welcome. Those people depend on their cars for getting to the doctor, to work or to school, and for doing their shopping. The Government's policies are having a disproportionate effect on my poorer constituents, especially in areas such as the Vale of Evesham, where there is no real prospect of any significant improvement in public transport.
Those people have a democratic right to freedom of movement. At the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, the freedom of mobility is as important as the freedom of speech was to previous generations. As democrats, we should respect that principle.
The Minister talked about the increase in the budget for repairs and maintenance on trunk roads, and my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk largely demolished his argument. At county council level, the budget for road repair and maintenance has been squeezed out of sight, and especially in rural shires. I do not know what the standard spending assessment for road maintenance in Worcestershire is, but it is made irrelevant by the disgracefully low SSA for social services.
Everything that should be available for other services is poured into social services. That must be right, because the protection of vulnerable people by social services departments should be a priority in any civilised society, but the result is that the potholes in Worcestershire are becoming a disgrace, the roads are becoming dangerous and maintenance is falling alarmingly behind schedule. To be fair to the Minister, there is not much that she can do about that, because the problem is the Government's underfunding of social services in rural shires.
I share my right hon. Friend's concern about detrunking. Given the squeeze on county council finances, there is a real risk that detrunking will impose a huge and unaffordable burden on county councils, which will then get the blame for not maintaining the roads effectively. To be fair, I should say that the Highways Agency is doing a good job bringing the roads up to scratch, prior to detrunking, and I wish to put on record my deep gratitude to the agency and the Government for what has been done to the A449 between Worcester and Kidderminster, which will make what was a killer road much safer.
I am slightly less grateful for the Government's failure to act in the matter of the Wyre Piddle bypass, and that also raises important wider points. I am glad to see a smile on the Minister's lips because we have talked about that bypass on many occasions. It is also important because it would bypass the town of Pershore in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Sir M. Spicer). It was next in the queue. Worcestershire has done well on bypasses, because we have the Broadway, Worcester Western, Norton-Lenchwick and Evesham bypasses. They have all been built without the significant traffic generation consequences that the Liberals fear, and they have provided a genuinely better environment for the people of those towns.
The Wyre Piddle bypass has been turned down twice by this Government, and they now propose a non-roads solution. I understand that there are non-roads solutions to urban traffic problems, but there are no non-roads solutions to rural bypasses. A community such as Wyre Piddle faces problems caused by bottlenecks and heavy lorries going to the landfill sites. Of course, the Government may have heard that I have nearly been involved in two accidents with lorries in Wyre Piddle, but they do not want the road built because they hope for a by-election in Mid-Worcestershire. However, they would get a shock if that were to happen. I ask the Minister to reconsider that decision on a road with no adverse environmental consequences. Not a single tree would be cut down for that road.
I am very disappointed by a response I received yesterday from Ministers. They said that they would not visit Wyre Piddle to observe the situation, and the ground they gave for that decision was extraordinary:
Any visit in advance of that consideration"—
of the case in this year's local transport plan bid—
would be premature."—[Official Report, 17 March 1999; Vol. 327, c. 669.]
When else are they to visit except before they make a decision? After a decision is made, it is clearly too late. The Anchor in Wyre Piddle is a fine pub: I hope that I can have a drink with the Minister there and that we can discuss the problem. She is a reasonable woman, and I am sure that she will be able to see the case for the road.
In conclusion, I wish to raise a point of principle. We in Worcestershire want two bypasses: Bordersley and Wyre Piddle. They could both be paid for out of a fraction of the increase in fuel duty that will be paid by Worcestershire motorists over the next three years. If the Government hypothecate only a tiny bit of that increase in revenue, they will make the lives of dwellers in rural England far better.

Ms Rosie Winterton: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate. It is important to get roads policy right, not only for the sake of our economy—many right hon. and hon. Members have referred to 90 per cent. of all journeys being made by road—but because of the need for policies that will reduce congestion. Congestion damages not only business, but the environment.
I am a member of the RAC Foundation's public policy committee, and I am sure that my right hon. and hon. Friends will be pleased to learn that the RAC welcomed the "New Deal for Transport" White Paper, and said that it represented a good change in approach from the predict and provide model of the previous Government, under whose stewardship road and bridge maintenance deteriorated alarmingly. The new approach of improving management of the trunk road network, and investing in road maintenance so that maximum use of the network can be made, is the key to improving the lives of motorists, as the hon. Member for Lewes (Mr. Baker) pointed out, although he is no longer in his place.
Motorists have also welcomed the radical change of approach in hypothecating revenue from road pricing to improve public transport, and the Government's strong commitment to improving urban and rural public transport


so that there is a viable alternative to car journeys. As my hon. Friends have pointed out, local transport plans have a vital role to play in achieving the Government's integrated transport plan.
The Government's priority of maintaining existing roads and bridges must be reflected at local authority level. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of routine planned maintenance of roads. Maintenance is not just about improving road safety for car users; it can improve the quality of life for those living near roads and it can reduce noise pollution. A good road surface is important for pedestrians, cyclists and motor cyclists.
When he was not referring to pubs in Wyre Piddle, the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) referred to the problems created by potholes. I very much agree with what he said. A war on potholes would be welcome, if the Minister could declare one.
The general situation is not helped by the constant digging up of roads by public utilities so that pipes can be mended or cables laid. Local authorities seem unable to get to grips with doing anything about that problem, and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport's statement provided good news for motorists in the form of a Bill on public streetworks. Government support for that will be very welcome.

Mr. Owen Paterson: Before the hon. Lady leaves the subject of local government and roads, would she reflect on a national study by the County Surveyors Society, which indicated that £5.25 billion must be spent if local authority roads are to be brought up to the standard set out in the local authority code of practice?

Ms Winterton: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for calling attention to the previous Government's failure to invest in roads. That failure is also reflected in a parliamentary briefing from the Automobile Association. It notes that the backlog in roads maintenance will cost £5 billion, which is plainly the result of the actions of the Conservative Government.
It is important that the 23 million motorists in the United Kingdom should be represented on the forthcoming commission for integrated transport. I should be grateful if the Minister could tell me when the commission's membership is likely to be announced, and if she could give us an assurance that road users will be properly represented.
My right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport stressed how important integration is. There is an excellent example in Doncaster of how the Government are integrating transport through the funding of support for the North Bridge road project and the building of a new transport interchange. The existing road takes more than 60,000 vehicles a day. Queues over the bridge are horrendous during rush hour, and pollution levels rise. Access to the railway station is difficult and unreliable. Communities outside the town centre become isolated because of access problems.
The project will reduce congestion, and it will let the council introduce a quality bus corridor which will give buses priority over other vehicles, and allow for segregated facilities for cyclists and pedestrians. It is an excellent example of how roads can be used to promote integrated

transport. It brings together access to rail-based transport, major improvements to public transport and improvements for general traffic. All that will assist in the economic regeneration of Doncaster, while also reducing pollution. It is a good example of joined-up Government thinking.
Along with the Doncaster interchange—a partnership between Government, the local authority and the private sector—that North Bridge road project will make it easier for people who want to change from one mode of transport to another to do so. That is integrated transport at its best and it is welcomed in my constituency.
The Conservative Government's road policy failed the people of Doncaster; in 1994, funding for the North Bridge relief road project was withdrawn by the Tories after £7.5 million of public money had been spent to put the scheme together. The Labour Government are making integrated sustainable transport a reality; that is good news not only for the motorist, but for cyclists, motor cyclists and pedestrians. I assure my right hon. and hon. Friends that my constituents and I already see the results of that new approach, which we warmly welcome. I congratulate the Government on taking swift action to put right the dismal record of the previous Conservative Government.

Mr. James Gray: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton), although that name does not have the same resonance and romance as "the hon. Member for Wyre Piddle"—my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff), who spoke before her and whose well-argued speech we all greatly enjoyed.
Labour's pre-election pledge on transport promised "immediate benefits" to the travelling public. I cannot remember whether it was one of their early pledges or a general pledge, but nothing could be clearer than "immediate benefits". However, if we are to believe the representatives of the AA, with whom a number of hon. Members on both sides of the House had lunch today, the travelling public are bitterly disappointed by the fact that they have seen no benefits of any kind—immediate or otherwise. Before the Budget, the level of satisfaction with the Government on transport was about 15 per cent.—the worst of all their satisfaction ratings. Since the Budget, public satisfaction with Labour's transport policies has gone off the Richter scale; some say that it is about 3 per cent., others that there is zero satisfaction among the travelling public.
It is an absolute disgrace; the Government have had two years to do something and they have done nothing. I say "nothing", but the speech of the hon. Member for Doncaster, Central was a classic example of what the Government have done; they love expressions such as "joined-up Government" and "integrated transport White Paper". However, let us consider the White Paper and what it promised. Where is the strategic rail authorities Bill? Where is the tonnage tax promised by the Minister when she gave evidence recently to the Transport Sub-Committee? She gave a strong indication that a tonnage tax would be introduced. Where is it? Nowhere.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Ms Glenda Jackson): The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that what he has just told the House bears no relation to what I said to the Transport Sub-Committee. I ask him to withdraw those remarks.

Mr. Gray: We seem to have touched a raw nerve. If what I said bore no relation to the hon. Lady's evidence to the Sub-Committee, I would happily withdraw it and apologise. However, my clear impression and—I think—that of other members of the Sub-Committee who are in the Chamber of the hon. Lady's evidence was that she and her colleagues in the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions were passionately in favour of the tonnage tax, that she hoped that it would be included in the forthcoming Budget and that she would be extremely disappointed if it were not. That is all on record.

Ms Jackson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. George Stevenson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Gray: If I may, I should prefer to give way to the hon. Gentleman, who is one of my colleagues on the Sub-Committee.

Mr. Stevenson: I fear that I must tell the hon. Gentleman that his recollection is incorrect. Although there was a significant amount of debate and questioning on the tonnage tax—which, by the way, relates to shipping, not to roads—my hon. Friend the Minister gave no such commitment as the hon. Gentleman suggests.

Mr. Gray: I accept that; there was no firm commitment, merely a clear impression. Under instruction from my Whips, I shall take no further interventions on that point, but we can read the record of the proceedings of the Sub-Committee and of today's debate.
There is huge disappointment among the travelling public about all Labour's transport policies. Those policies have amounted to nothing: all mouth and no trousers, like so many of Labour's other policies. As a result of last week's Budget, the Government have hit rock bottom in public perception of their record on motoring. The Government's aim seems to be to tax the private motorist off the road. Currently, private motorists throughout the nation pay about £1,000 a year in taxes on petrol and car ownership. That figure includes the towns. In rural areas, it is twice that amount: people pay £2,000 to £3,000 a year to run their cars. In rural areas such as my constituency, most families—even the poorest—have two cars. So we are talking about motoring expenses of £4,000 or £5,000 from very small incomes.
The Government have put up petrol prices by an extraordinary 6 per cent., and apparently the escalator will continue. The Government make great play of the fact that a Conservative Government introduced the escalator—and they are right. However, when people ride an escalator at a department store or an hotel, they get off when they get to their destination. Now that United Kingdom petrol prices are more expensive than those of any other country in the world, I suggest that we have got where we are going. We are very close to achieving our

Kyoto targets. We have achieved 10 per cent. of our 12.5 per cent. target and will easily attain the full 12.5 per cent. through changes in energy generation.
The Government also propose congestion and parking charges, both of which would do nothing but hammer the private motorist. They are revenue-raising proposals and have nothing to do with the environment. It is significant that, having given his imprimatur to the proposals as environmental taxes, the Deputy Prime Minister was then packed off to the Maldives for a bit of shark fishing so that he could not comment during the Budget process. The truth is that they are not environmental taxes: they will not reduce car use, help with congestion or cut pollution levels. The proposals are aimed simply at raising a large amount of revenue, and it is important for the Government to come clean and admit that.
Worst of all is the tax on lorries. Earlier in the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) challenged the Minister of Transport to disclose how much tax would be paid on a 1,000-litre tank of petrol. It will now cost £644 to fill that tank in the United Kingdom, but £340 in Belgium. The vehicle excise duty for 38-tonne, five-axle lorries has increased from £3,310 to £5,750 in Britain. The comparative figure in France is £269. That is an outrageous increase.
The Government are determined to tax the private motorist off the road and the lorry driver off to the continent. It is a disgrace and, like the rest of the Government's transport policies, amounts to nothing. The Government are all talk and no trousers, except when it comes to taxing the motorist into the ground.

Mr. David Chaytor: I welcome the progress that the Government have made on roads policy over the past two years. It is fair to say that the political landscape has been transformed in all aspects of transport policy.
As time is short, I shall make three brief points. The first concerns traffic reduction. The hon. Member for Lewes (Mr. Baker) was the only hon. Member to refer to the report of the Standing Advisory Committee on Trunk Road Assessment, which was produced in the early 1990s when the right hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. MacGregor) was in office. That report concluded that new roads do not reduce congestion but, as the right hon. Gentleman said, its real significance was in signalling an end, once and for all, to the predict and provide model.
The report found that it is impossible, on this small island with a population of 56 million people, for all those people to exercise their right to use a motor car as and when they see fit because the freedom they wish to exercise is impossible to achieve. The more people believe that they can simply drive wherever they want, whenever they want, the less likely their chance of doing so because the motorways will seize up. That point is central to the Government's transport and roads policy. We cannot assume that we can continue to exercise our personal freedom indefinitely. We all have a responsibility to understand that point and to take action.
My right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport referred to a remark made by the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) about the hypocrisy in the


Conservative party of those who argue that, on the one hand, they support its policy, and that of the Government, of reducing carbon dioxide emissions to meet the Kyoto targets, but that on the other hand, they oppose the fuel duty escalator and other restrictions on private motoring.
I would not mind if Tory Members said that they were opposed to the Kyoto protocol and they supported people's right to drive their cars whenever they want. That, at least, would be consistent. It is not intellectually consistent for them to say that they support environmental measures and are all in favour of cutting carbon dioxide emissions, but that they want to do nothing about that in their roads policy. That goes further than hypocrisy; it is schizophrenia. The division in the Conservative party between those who profess to support the environment and those who are simply mouthpieces for the road haulage lobby is growing by the day. It is equally as great as the Conservatives' divisions on Europe, and sooner or later, it will cause an equally serious crisis in the party.
My second point concerns my constituency. If I may, I will tell a brief story. Thirty years ago, a railway line connected Bury to the smaller towns to the north and to the Rossendale valley even further to the north. Thanks to Lord Beeching, that line was closed, and a few years later, a large motorway, the M66, was constructed. After that, areas of land adjacent to the motorway were developed for housing. Thousands of new houses were constructed, and many of them attracted two-car families. Shortly after its construction, therefore, the M66 became clogged up with traffic. What an indictment of our transport policy it is that over 30 years, we shut down the railway system, built roads, put new houses next to them and clogged them up with cars. The people who wanted to get out to work in the conurbation further to the south were simply unable to do so.
My final point concerns the fuel duty escalator. I referred in an earlier intervention to the recent research available in the Library which proves conclusively that the fuel duty escalator is fair, effective and workable. It proves conclusively that it does not damage the interests of low-income households in rural areas, because the lowest-income households do not have cars. It proves conclusively that the policy shifts the balance of taxation from those who can least afford to pay to those who can well afford to pay.

Mr. David Faber: I am grateful for the opportunity to make a brief contribution late in this debate, not least because it saves me from having to instigate, at a later stage, an Adjournment debate on a road in my constituency.
First, I strongly associate myself with the earlier remarks of my right hon. and hon. Friends on the previous Conservative Government's record on building bypasses and the effects of this Government's policies on the road haulage industry. I am proud to have successful members of that industry in my constituency, one of whom I spoke to this morning, when he described the Government's current Budget plans for the industry as idiotic.
My colleagues have referred also to the slashing of the roads budget. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) that the Government have misunderstood the problems of people in rural areas, especially poorer areas, and their dependency on their car to take their children to school, go to work and do the weekly shop.
In his opening speech, the Minister of Transport said that he hoped that hon. Members who had individual constituency cases would write to him rather than raising them in the debate. I am happy to say that hon. Members on both sides of the House have ignored his strictures. They were right to do so if, like me, they have been trying to contact Ministers for the past six months by post, through speeches in the House or by invitations to the constituency. I know what a forlorn hope that can be.
I make no apology for mentioning a road in my constituency that illustrates the grave problems that the Government will face on detrunking. In July last year, the Government issued their paper, "A New Deal for Trunk Roads in England", which, referring to the south-west, said:
A number of smaller scale but badly needed measures are under way or planned in the South West which address safety or capacity problems at particular points on the trunk road network. They will proceed regardless of the outcome of studies affecting the roads.
The A36, which runs through my constituency, is a main regional road. It runs from Southampton on the south coast to join the A46 at Bath, and on into Wales and the midlands. It is a vital inter-regional link which carries huge amounts of heavy traffic. I am especially concerned with one small link: the Codford to Heytesbury bypass, which is considered by local police to be the most dangerous part of the A36.
On several occasions under the previous Government, I took representatives from local parish councils to see the Minister of Transport's predecessor, John Watts. By the general election, it had been agreed that a design, build, finance and operate project would go ahead, and it was almost certainly at the top of the council's priorities. Designs had been submitted and bids were prepared, but in July came the bombshell that this main regional route was to be detrunked, and that not only would the scheme be cancelled, but the road would no longer be central Government's responsibility.
The width of the small link is the same as it was when it was built as a turnpike in the 19th century. The narrowness causes frequent blockages, and the junctions and bends are lethal. One junction on the brow of a hill is a constant source of accidents, but the most dangerous stretch is the turning out of the village of Upton Lovell£a blind bend that the police acknowledge is the most dangerous on the road between Southampton and Bath, and which I, like the locals, refuse to use. We all prefer to drive several miles through other villages in order to gain access to the main road.
I am sorry to say that the stretch of road has been the scene of tragic accidents. In 1991, 16-year-old Matthew Armes was killed when he was hit by a car while sitting on his bicycle outside his front door. I have stood with his mother at the very spot where he sadly died. A second cyclist, Mr. Terry, was killed on the same stretch of road in the same year. A year later, there were three accidents in a fortnight just near the spot where Matthew died. This year, there has already been one fatal accident on that stretch of road. Two days before that, a child was critically injured in a crash at the junction on the brow of the hill to which I referred.
All this may sound like a purely local issue, but I make no apology for raising it because road safety and the wider issue of detrunking is important. Local people are horrified that, by detrunking the road, the Government are


effectively washing their hands of the problem. Worse still, although county councils have always been compensated for taking responsibility for roads following detrunking, Wiltshire county council has been told informally that there is to be no compensation.
The hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mrs. Organ) made great play of how her county council was happy with its negotiations with central Government, yet Wiltshire county council has still not been told whether the road is to be detrunked, when it is to be detrunked and whether there will be any compensation. The Under-Secretary is shrugging her shoulders.

Ms Glenda Jackson: I do not understand what the hon. Gentleman is attempting to elicit. I understood him to say that the road had been detrunked and that there would be no compensation. Detrunked roads for which a local authority has asked will lose no status. There will be fair funding to ensure their life-long maintenance. Such matters are on-going between the Highways Agency and local authorities.

Mr. Faber: With respect, life-long maintenance is not the same as improving a stretch of road which the local police have acknowledged is the most dangerous in the region.
I am aware that other hon. Members want to participate, so I shall leave the Under-Secretary and the Minister of Transport, who I am glad to see is back in his place, with the issue. Perhaps I can at least secure an undertaking this evening that the Under-Secretary's officials will contact the county council to explain the true status of the road and that, if the road is to be detrunked, they will work with the county council to ensure that compensation is paid. Perhaps, too, all records on that stretch of road that are held by the Highways Agency will be made available to the county council.

Mr. Christopher Leslie: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak briefly in this debate. Several issues have already been raised, so I shall not repeat them.
One of the most striking features of the debate has been the U-turn of Opposition Members—and not only on the number of roads that they want in the roads programme. We knew that that number started at 500 back in 1990, and that it fell to 150 by 1997, but from the way in which they have spoken in this debate, one would think that they wanted to throw in another couple of hundred for good measure.
Not only has there been a U-turn on that but, more interestingly—despite the fact that, in 1994, the Conservative Government increased diesel duty by 13 per cent.—Conservative Members have said that they actually want to cut diesel duty. They therefore have a responsibility to say how they intend to raise the millions of pounds of revenue for vital public services that that duty generates. There will be some interesting things for us to consider in tomorrow's Hansard.
I believe that the Government's strategy is more realistic about tackling congestion, is realistic in the sense of prioritising infrastructure investment where necessary, and focuses on the necessary integrated public transport strategy that has been missing for so long. The extra

funding for transport—£1.7 billion in the next three years—is extremely welcome, providing new opportunities to reduce congestion. It will also help to move people out of cars and into more effective methods of public transport.
The Chancellor announced many things in his Budget. One of the announcements for which my constituents were most grateful was that relating to the capital modernisation fund. That will double infrastructural investment across all public services during the life of this Parliament, and it highlights the many ways in which transport infrastructure investment will benefit.
My right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport said that the Highways Agency was being refocused on better maintenance, the more effective use of existing road space, and a greater emphasis on the environment and road safety. The legacy left by the Conservative party was one of individual car growth spiralling out of control, pollution and an unfortunate increase in the number of road casualties. At last—it is about time—we have a Government who are tackling these things at a comprehensive strategic level.
Most importantly, I want to take the opportunity to say thank you once again to my right hon. and hon. Friends for their approval of the A650 Bingley relief road. [HoN. MEMBERS: "Hurrah."] I am glad to hear hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber greet that announcement with such acclaim. I was bowled over with excitement when the announcement was made. I am so proud that, after 27 years of my short life and a 35-year wait by my constituents, a £60 million, 5 km stretch of dual carriageway is being prioritised. Work is scheduled to start in 2001–02. That is an extremely welcome announcement, and contrasts with the failure of the Conservative party ever to get things under way.
The road will increase accessibility to the local town centre and help the local economy, enabling businesses to move about more easily instead of being stuck in congestion. It is a cost-effective scheme and it will do a tremendous amount to regenerate Bingley town centre. Apart from the generally improved environment that will result, pollution will reduce significantly as decreased congestion causes emissions of smoke and particulates from vehicles to fall.
On road safety, I hope that the average of 35 casualties that have taken place in Bingley each year will be almost eliminated because roads and pedestrians will be separated. That is a very important point.
I have taken the liberty of setting up a working group in my constituency to consider how we may use the Bingley relief road go-ahead to benefit integrated public transport development. I have brought together a local Railtrack representative and representatives of the Northern Spirit train company, First Bradford bus company, Keighley district bus company and several user groups to see how we can use the free thoroughfare that we shall have on the Bingley main street to further public transport development.
I am delighted that this relief road will create enormous potential for my constituents in public transport. I am very proud of the Minister. I repeat that my constituents are extremely pleased, delighted and happy with the Government's road policy.

Mr. Bernard Jenkin: The policy of the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Leslie) seems to be that there should be new roads for Shipley, but not for anywhere else. We do not regard that as a satisfactory policy. I should point out to the hon. Gentleman that we voted against the diesel duty increases in the Budget, so there was no U-turn today. Indeed, we voted against the diesel duty increases in the previous Budget. The hon. Gentleman should read Hansard.
The Prime Minister said that he wants Europe to be more like America. The price per litre of unleaded petrol is 67.89p in the UK, whereas in the US it is 15.9p. There is rather a big gap between the Prime Minister's rhetoric and the reality.
I particularly enjoyed the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. MacGregor), who made a strong case for a substantial programme of trunk road and motorway renewals and improvements. He rightly pointed out that the 400 schemes that we produced over 18 years are not matched by the mere 37 schemes that the Government propose over seven years.
The hon. Member for Lewes (Mr. Baker) could not say whether he thought that the building of the M25 was a mistake, which rather sums up Liberal Democrat policy. He mentioned the subject of traffic growth. We are against the increase in congestion and pollution which has been caused by the Government's policies.

Mr. Baker: rose—

Mr. Jenkin: I will not give way, as I am short of time.
I thank my colleagues and the Labour Members who contributed to the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) mentioned the Wyre Piddle bypass and the problems at Bordersley.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) was absolutely right again about the escalator. We introduced the escalator with the intention not that it should go on for ever, but that, when we got to the top, we should get off.
It is utter cant for the hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) to justify the tax increases in terms of the environmental policy. We have met our Kyoto targets. He is promoting coal-fired power stations, instead of cleaner gas-fired power stations. Coal-fired power stations contribute far more to environmental pollution than cars. Petrol duty increases will contribute virtually nothing towards reduced CO2 emissions.
My hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Mr. Faber) made a moving speech. His concerns about the detrunking of the A36 and A46 are significant, and I am sure that the Minister of Transport took them on board. My hon. Friend's comments reflect the fact that the roads programme is a matter of life or death.
We all enjoyed the speech by the Minister of Transport, possibly more than he did. We must be fair to him—he has inherited a mess that is not entirely his fault. [Interruption.] His colleagues have landed him in it because of the commitments that they have made and the cuts that he has been landed with. We were stirred by his loyalty to his boss. Perhaps he will pass on our apologies if his boss bursts into tears as a result of the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard).
We welcome the Minister's announcement about the A130, which is a tribute to our skills as an Opposition in calling for the debate. I also welcome the Minister's endorsement of the Streetworks Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mr. Fraser).
The Minister complained about the accident statistics that he inherited from the previous Government. The statistics are better than those of any European country, by miles. That shows that he was scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Mr. Robert Key: rose—

Mr. Jenkin: I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me for not giving way, but I have very little time.
Transport taxation has rocketed under the Government. As the House of Commons Library confirms, the Government will raise an extra £9 billion in fuel duties over the lifetime of this Parliament, over and above what was planned by the Conservatives. However, new taxes on motoring and the motorist do not end there.
In the most recent Budget alone, there is an extra £270 million from company car drivers. There are extra taxes on business, especially small businesses, through the increase in national insurance for the self-employed. There is the punitive vehicle excise duty rate on 40 and 41 tonne trucks, which is more than 11 times higher than the equivalent rate in other EU countries.
All that compounds the overwhelming impression that the Government do not begin to understand the circumstances of the road haulage sector. The industry is manifestly in a state of crisis, yet the Budget piles on even more pain and taxes.
People's livelihoods are being destroyed and 50,000 jobs are set to go. This is all the more evident now than it was before the Budget, yet, to the Freight Transport Association, the Minister of Transport could only say:
While it is a problem, it is hardly the massive one that it's made out to be. I'm convinced that you don't suffer from any serious disadvantage.
What planet is he living on? Now the Prime Minister acknowledges the problem. In the House yesterday, he said:
I certainly understand the problems of the road haulage industry as it has set them out."—[Official Report, 17 March 1999; Vol. 327, c. 1120.]
What happened between the Freight Transport Association's conference and the Prime Minister's statement yesterday? It happens to be the Budget. Yet, as -though in mitigation, the Prime Minister has the gall to add that he has now given a £400 million subsidy in low-sulphur fuel discounts. A subsidy—is he serious? Has he forgotten that the Budget has just increased the duty on ultra low-sulphur diesel by 9.82 per cent? Yet he calls it a subsidy. He has just clobbered the road haulage industry with a massive tax increase and he insults the industry that is underwriting his increases in public spending by claiming that it is receiving a subsidy.
That blindness is matched only by the comments of the Minister for Transport in London, speaking just after the Budget, when she said:
many foreign hauliers … are now moving to the United Kingdom and using it as a base for their operations.


She added:
We perceive haulage firms from mainland Europe moving their operations into this country."—[Official Report, European Standing Committee A, 10 March 1999; c. 8–9.]
She can only mean that they are coming here with foreign registered trucks, burning cheap foreign fuel to mop up the UK competition.
To add further insult to injury, speaking to the Freight Transport Association conference, the Minister of Transport said:
I have never met a businessman yet who goes out of business and says it is his fault.
How out of touch can the right hon. Gentleman be?
From the reports of Downing street briefings today, and for all the Prime Minister's supple body language, we know that the Government are still in complete denial about the catastrophe that the haulage industry faces. No wonder there will be a demonstration of the industry's despair in London. The chaos will be the fault of the right hon. Gentleman and his Government. He would do well to say this evening that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will agree to see representatives of the road haulage industry for the first time, because that might do something to diffuse the crisis.

Dr. Reid: In view of the hon. Gentleman's commendation of that demonstration, will he stop his weasel words, get up on his two feet, and tell us whether he supports the demonstration that is to take place on Monday which will disrupt and inconvenience London?

Mr. Jenkin: Of course I do not support the demonstration. The right hon. Gentleman knows that the truckers have been driven to this despair by the Government's policies. He would do well to acknowledge the destruction that his policies wreak. Where is all the money going? It is not going on transport, because transport spending is falling. The previous Conservative Government, in their last year in office, spent £4.9 billion on transport, and were planning to spend £5.2 billion in 1997–98. The comprehensive spending review shows that the Government are spending only £4.7 billion this year, falling to £4.6 billion next year, and falling further to £4.5 billion the year after that.
On trunk road and motorway improvements, the Conservative Government spent £1 billion a year between 1994–95 and 1996–97. The Government will spend only £300 million a year between 1999 and 2002. Spending on local road improvement schemes will increase next year by a paltry £1 million to £624 million—a cut in real terms. As my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk described, the backlog of repairs is getting even worse. No—for all the glossy brochures and reannounced initiatives, the Government's priority is not transport. The reason why motorists must pay tax of £8.50 out of every £10 spent at the petrol pump is to pay for the Government's profligacy and incompetence in other departments.
The Government have increased—

Mr. Ivor Caplin: What about the money for the health service?

Mr. Jenkin: The hon. Gentleman talks about the health service, but the Government have increased social

security spending—tax credit spending—by £38.4 billion and are squandering billions of pounds on the so-called new deal for the unemployed, ignorant of the fact that their other policies are throwing people straight back on the dole.
Two years into the Parliament, we have only endless consultation and not a single transport Bill. Britain needs a Government who can think creatively about solving Britain's transport problems. Labour inherited creative thinking from the Conservatives—for example, a £20 billion investment programme for the railways—and that is how we transformed so many state-owned transport industries.
We provided the new ideas in the past, and the Conservatives will have to provide the new ideas in the future, to get Britain moving again. Two years ago, Labour promised an integrated transport policy, but it is delivering a standstill Britain.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Ms Glenda Jackson): The hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) made his only salient point at the beginning of his contribution: he confessed, albeit without apology, that the Government inherited a mess in respect of road and rail transport because of the previous Government's total failure even to begin to consider what is central to our policies—an integrated transport strategy.
An integrated transport strategy was supported by my hon. Friends the Members for Forest of Dean (Mrs. Organ), for Castle Point (Mrs. Butler), for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton), for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) and for Shipley (Mr. Leslie). Each and every one of them could detail to the House how the Government are improving the lives of their constituents by introducing policies and funds to create integrated transport strategies. Those strategies relieve overdependence on the private car and play their part in reducing not only congestion, but pollution.
Every contribution made from the Conservative Benches was fascinating, because the Conservative party is doing a major U-turn on every transport policy that it inflicted on this country for 18 years.

Mr. Faber: Will the Minister give way?

Ms Jackson: No, I am afraid that I am almost out of time.
The right hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. MacGregor) made a particularly interesting contribution. Apparently, he managed to obtain 13 bypasses for his constituency, but he complains that he needs another two. If I remember rightly, he agreed that we had to move away from what had been Conservative party— and provide—because putting more and more tarmac on our roads does nothing but encourage more car journeys.
The right hon. Gentleman's contribution was also interesting because he wants to introduce motorway tolls, which I understand is not Conservative party policy, although we know that the Conservatives would introduce congestion charging. However, they would never, ever hypothecate the sums so raised to the improvement of transport, which is our policy in respect of the Greater London authority. [Interruption.] It is in the Bill.
The hon. Member for Lewes (Mr. Baker) somewhat ungraciously neglected to accord to the Government credit for the help that they gave to the hon. ember for Ceredigion (Mr. Dafis) when he took his Road Traffic Reduction (National Targets) Bill through the House. The hon. Gentleman asked particular questions; no, of course I cannot guarantee that there will be the reduction in traffic about which he spoke by the end of this Parliament. As my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport made clear in his opening remarks, changing direction is like manoeuvring a supertanker, which cannot be turned on a sixpence. However, our commitment to achieving not only a reduction in road traffic, but an absolute reduction, stands firm.
Two central themes emanated from the contributions of Conservative Members: their unwillingness to acknowledge that they introduced the fuel duty escalator and their inability to accept that the major rises in the escalator occurred under the previous Administration, as we have had occasion to say. The price of DERV has risen by 7p since May 1997; under the previous Government, it rose by 26p.
Conservative Members also made much of the fact that they put funding into trunk road maintenance and local road schemes. This Government have increased funding for local road maintenance to almost £2 billion—the figure was frozen for four years by the previous Administration—and there is almost £250,000 in additional funding for the bridge programme. We have given a clear commitment on the 37 road schemes which we announced, with a budget of £1.4 billion. The figures for trunk road maintenance are £651 million for 1998–99 and £780 million for 2001–02, and there has been an additional £550 million for making better use of our roads.
Conservative Members were much concerned about what they claimed was an unbearable burden on our freight industry. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport will meet representatives of the haulage industry. Conservative Members do no favours to the companies in their constituencies if they do not point out to those hauliers the facts of the case. If hauliers moved to the continent, the real burden would be the infinitely higher rates of corporation tax—the United Kingdom has the lowest—and infinitely higher social costs on the mainland of Europe.

Mr. Paterson: Will the hon. Lady give way?

Ms Jackson: No.
The net differential with haulage companies in France has been estimated at almost £450,000 in France, almost £600,000 in the Netherlands, and more than £800,000 in Belgium. If Conservative Members are seriously committed to their constituents and are really concerned about retaining jobs in their areas, they should give the industry the facts, as my right hon. Friend most certainly will.
Another issue which was raised by more than one hon. Member was detrunking. The hon. Member for Westbury (Mr. Faber) spoke of a particularly tragic incident in his constituency on the road that is proposed for detrunking. Detrunking does not mean a reduction in status, and discussions are continuing between the local authorities and my Department. Nor does it mean that there will be inadequate funds to maintain such roads throughout their lifetime. I hope that that will reassure the hon. Gentleman.
My hon. Friends made many valid points on safety. The Government are committed to ensuring that our roads are safe. We want there to be a shift and we want to offer real choices for travel, so that we begin to reduce the dangers on our roads. Conservative Members would apparently abolish the fuel duty escalator. They have clearly given up any commitment to meeting the environmental targets of Kyoto. [Interruption.] They have washed their hands of taking any steps to improve our environment and to reduce congestion on our roads. They would go back to the old predict and provide strategy on road building. [Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The House must come to order. There is far too much noise in the Chamber.

Ms Jackson: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Conservative Members shed crocodile tears about what they regard as the horrendous impact on rural communities of the fuel duty escalator. The Conservative Government pillaged rural communities. They took away roads, jobs, houses, health care, village shops and village schools. Now, suddenly, Conservative Members are caring, but what was significantly missing from their contributions was any mention of the 30 per cent. of people in this country who have no access to private transport. Where would those people be now if Conservative policies had continued?

Mr. James Arbuthnot: rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.

Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.

Question accordingly put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—

The House divided: Ayes 121, Noes 302.

Division No. 119]
[6.59 pm


AYES


Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)
Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice


Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James
& Howden)


Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)
Day, Stephen


Bercow, John
Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen


Beresford, Sir Paul
Duncan, Alan


Body, Sir Richard
Duncan Smith, Iain


Boswell, Tim
Faber, David


Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)
Fabricant, Michael


Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia
Fallon, Michael


Brooke, Rt Hon Peter
Forth, Rt Hon Eric


Browning, Mrs Angela
Fraser, Christopher


Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)
Gibb, Nick


Bums, Simon
Gill, Christopher


Butterfill, John
Goodlad, Rt Hon Sir Alastair


Chapman, Sir Sydney
Gorman, Mrs Teresa


(Chipping Barnet)
Gray, James


Chope, Christopher
Green, Damian


Clappison, James
Greenway, John


Clark, Rt Hon Alan (Kensington)
Grieve, Dominic


Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth
Gummer, Rt Hon John


(Rushcliffe)
Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie


Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey
Hawkins, Nick


Colvin, Michael
Hayes, John


Cormack, Sir Patrick
Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David


Cran, James
Horam, John


Curry, Rt Hon David
Howard, Rt Hon Michael


Davies, Quentin (Grantham)
Hunter, Andrew



Jack, Rt Hon Michael






Jenkin, Bernard
Robathan, Andrew


Johnson Smith,
Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)


Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey
Rowe, Andrew (Faversham)


Key, Robert
Ruffley, David


Kirkbride, Miss Julie
St Aubyn, Nick


Laing, Mrs Eleanor
Shephard, Rt Hon Mrs Gillian


Lait, Mrs Jacqui
Shepherd, Richard


Lansley, Andrew
Spelman, Mrs Caroline


Leigh, Edward
Spicer, Sir Michael


Lidington, David
Spring, Richard


Lilley, Rt Hon Peter
Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John


Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)
Steen, Anthony


Loughton, Tim
Streeter, Gary


Luff, Peter
Syms, Robert


Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas
Tapsell, Sir Peter


MacGregor, Rt Hon John
Taylor, Ian (Esher& Walton)


McIntosh, Miss Anne
Taylor, John M (Solihull)


MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew
Taylor, Sir Teddy


Maclean, Rt Hon David
Townend, John


McLoughlin, Patrick
Tredinnick, David


Madel, Sir David
Trend, Michael


Malins, Humfrey
Tyrie, Andrew


Maples, John
Wardle, Charles


Maude, Rt Hon Francis
Waterson, Nigel


Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian
Wells, Bowen


May, Mrs Theresa
Whitney, Sir Raymond


Moss, Malcolm
Whittingdale, John


Nicholls, Patrick
Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann


Norman, Archie
Wilkinson, John


Ottaway, Richard
Wilshire, David


Page, Richard
Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)


Paice, James
Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)


Paterson, Owen
Young, Rt Hon Sir George


Pickles, Eric



Prior, David
Tellers for the Ayes:


Randall, John
Mr. Oliver Heald and


Redwood, Rt Hon John
Mr. Tim Collins.


NOES


Abbott, Ms Diane
Butler, Mrs Christine


Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley N)
Byers, Rt Hon Stephen


Ainger, Nick
Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)


Allan, Richard
Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies


Allen, Graham
(NE Fife)


Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)
Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)


Atherton, Ms Candy
Canavan, Dennis


Atkins, Charlotte
Caplin, Ivor


Austin, John
Casale, Roger


Baker, Norman
Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)


Banks, Tony
Chaytor, David


Barnes, Harry
Chisholm, Malcolm


Barron, Kevin
Clapham, Michael


Battle, John
Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields)


Bayley, Hugh
Clark, Paul (Gillingham)


Beard, Nigel
Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)


Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret
Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)


Bell, Stuart (Middlesbrough)
Clelland, David


Bennett, Andrew F
Clwyd, Ann


Benton, Joe
Coaker, Vernon


Bermingham, Gerald
Coleman, Iain


Berry, Roger
Connarty, Michael


Best, Harold
Cook, Frank (Stockton N)


Betts, Clive
Cooper, Yvette


Blackman, Liz
Corbett, Robin


Blears, Ms Hazel
Corbyn, Jeremy


Blizzard, Bob
Corston, Ms Jean


Boateng, Paul
Cousins, Jim


Borrow, David
Cox, Tom


Bradley, Keith (Withington)
Cranston, Ross


Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)
Crausby, David


Brown, Rt Hon Nick (Newcastle E)
Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)


Browne, Desmond
Cryer, John (Hornchurch)


Buck, Ms Karen
Cunliffe, Lawrence


Burden, Richard
Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)


Burgon, Colin
Dalyell, Tam


Burstow, Paul
Darling, Rt Hon Alistair





Darvill, Keith
Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald


Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)
Keeble, Ms Sally


Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)
Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)


Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H)
Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)


Dawson, Hilton
Kelly, Ms Ruth


Dean, Mrs Janet
Kemp, Fraser


Denham, John
Kennedy, Charles (Ross Skye)


Dismore, Andrew
Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)


Dobbin, Jim
Khabra, Piara S


Donohoe, Brian H
King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)


Doran, Frank
Kingham, Ms Tess


Dowd, Jim
Kumar, Dr Ashok


Drew, David
Ladyman, Dr Stephen


Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth
Lawrence, Ms Jackie


Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)
Laxton, Bob


Edwards, Huw
Leslie, Christopher


Ellman, Mrs Louise
Levitt, Tom


Fatchett, Rt Hon Derek
Linton, Martin


Feam, Ronnie
Love, Andrew


Field, Rt Hon Frank
McAllion, John


Fisher, Mark
McAvoy, Thomas


Fitzpatrick, Jim
McCafferty, Ms Chris


Fitzsimons, Lorna
McDonagh, Siobhain


Flint, Caroline
Macdonald, Calum


Flynn, Paul
McDonnell, John


Follett, Barbara
McIsaac, Shona


Foster, Rt Hon Derek
McKenna, Mrs Rosemary


Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)
Mackinlay, Andrew


Foster, Michael J (Worcester)
McLeish, Henry


Foulkes, George
Mactaggart, Fiona


Fyfe, Maria
McWalter, Tony


Galloway, George
Mallaber, Judy


Gapes, Mike
Mandelson, Rt Hon Peter


Gerrard, Neil
Marek, Dr John


Godman, Dr Norman A
Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)


Gorrie, Donald
Marshall, David (Shettleston)


Grocott, Bruce
Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)


Grogan, John
Martlew, Eric


Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)
Maxton, John


Hall, Patrick (Bedford)
Meale, Alan


Hancock, Mike
Milburn, Rt Hon Alan


Hanson, David
Mitchell, Austin


Harris, Dr Evan
Moonie, Dr Lewis


Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)
Moore, Michael


Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)
Moran, Ms Margaret


Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)
Morley, Elliot


Hepburn, Stephen
Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)


Heppell, John
Mountford, Kali


Hesford, Stephen
Mudie, George


Hewitt, Ms Patricia
Mullin, Chris


Hill, Keith
Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)


Hodge, Ms Margaret
Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)


Hoey, Kate
Naysmith, Dr Doug


Home Robertson, John
Oaten, Mark


Hoon, Geoffrey
O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)


Hope, Phil
O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)


Hopkins, Kelvin
O'Hara, Eddie


Howarth, Alan (Newport E)
Olner, Bill


Howarth, George (Knowsley N)
O'Neill, Martin


Hoyle, Lindsay
Öpik, Lembit


Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)
Organ, Mrs Diana


Hughes, Simon (Southward N)
Osborne, Ms Sandra


Hurst, Alan
Palmer, Dr Nick


Hutton, John
Pearson, Ian


Iddon, Dr Brian
Perham, Ms Linda


Illsley, Eric
Pickthall, Colin


Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)
Pike, Peter L


Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)
Plaskitt, James


Jamieson, David
Pollard, Kerry


Jenkins, Brian
Pond, Chris


Johnson, Alan (Hull W& Hessle)
Pope, Greg


Jones, Helen (Warrington N)
Powell, Sir Raymond


Jones, Ms Jenny
Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)


(Wolverh'ton SW)
Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)


Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)
Primarolo, Dawn


Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S)
Prosser, Gwyn






Purchase, Ken
Stinchcombe, Paul


Rapson, Syd
Stoate, Dr Howard


Raynsford, Nick
Stott, Roger


Reid, Rt Hon Dr John (Hamilton N)
Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin


Rendel, David
Stringer, Graham


Roche, Mrs Barbara
Sutcliffe, Gerry


Rooker, Jeff
Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann


Rooney, Terry
(Dewsbury)


Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)
Temple-Morris, Peter


Rowlands, Ted
Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)


Roy, Frank
Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)


Ruane, Chris
Timms, Stephen


Ruddock, Joan
Tipping, Paddy


Russell, Bob (Colchester)
Todd, Mark


Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)
Tonge, Dr Jenny


Ryan, Ms Joan
Touhig, Don


Sawford, Phil
Trickett, Jon


Sedgemore, Brian
Turner, Dennis (Wotverh'ton SE)


Shaw, Jonathan
Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)


Sheerman, Barry
Twigg, Derek (Halton)


Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert
Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)


Shipley, Ms Debra
Tyler, Paul


Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)
Vis, Dr Rudi


Singh, Marsha
Walley, Ms Joan


Skinner, Dennis
Ward, Ms Claire


Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)
Wareing, Robert N


Smith, Angela (Basildon)
Watts, David


Smith, Miss Geraldine
White, Brian


(Morecambe & Lunesdale)
Whitehead, Dr Alan


Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)
Wicks, Malcolm


Smith, John (Glamorgan)
Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)


Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)
Wills, Michael


Snape, Peter
Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)


Soley, Clive
Wood, Mike


Southworth, Ms Helen
Woolas, Phil


Spellar, John
Worthington, Tony


Squire, Ms Rachel
Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)


Starkey, Dr Phyllis
Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock)


Steinberg, Gerry



Stevenson, George
Tellers for the Noes:


Stewart, David (Inverness E)
Mrs. Anne McGuire and


Stewart, Ian (Eccles)
Mr. Robert Ainsworth.

Question accordingly negatived.

Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments):—

The House divided: Ayes 272, Noes 123.

Division No. 120]
[7.12 pm


AYES


Abbott, Ms Diane
Blears, Ms Hazel


Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley N)
Blizzard, Bob


Ainger, Nick
Boateng, Paul


Allen, Graham
Borrow, David


Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)
Bradley, Keith (Withington)


Atherton, Ms Candy
Brown, Rt Hon Nick (Newcastle E)


Atkins, Charlotte
Buck, Ms Karen


Austin, John
Burden, Richard


Barnes, Harry
Burgon, Colin


Barron, Kevin
Butler, Mrs Christine


Battle, John
Byers, Rt Hon Stephen


Bayley, Hugh
Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)


Beard, Nigel
Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)


Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret
Canavan, Dennis


Bell, Stuart (Middlesbrough)
Caplin, Ivor


Bennett, Andrew F
Casale, Roger


Benton, Joe
Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)


Bermingham, Gerald
Chaytor, David


Berry, Roger
Chisholm, Malcolm


Best, Harold
Clapham, Michael


Betts, Clive
Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields)


Blackman, Liz
Clark, Paul (Gillingham)





Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)
Hurst, Alan


Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)
Hutton, John


Clelland, David
Iddon, Dr Brian


Clwyd, Ann
Illsley, Eric


Coaker, Vernon
Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)


Coleman, Iain
Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)


Connarty, Michael
Jenkins, Brian


Cook, Frank (Stockton N)
Johnson, Alan (Hull W& Hessle)


Cooper, Yvette
Jones, Helen (Warrington N)


Corbett, Robin
Jones, Ms Jenny


Corbyn, Jeremy
(Wolverh'ton SW)


Corston, Ms Jean
Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)


Cousins, Jim
Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S)


Cox, Tom
Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald


Cranston, Ross
Keeble, Ms Sally


Crausby, David
Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)


Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)
Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)


Cryer, John (Hornchurch)
Kelly, Ms Ruth


Cunliffe, Lawrence
Kemp, Fraser


Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)
Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)


Darling, Rt Hon Alistair
Khabra, Piara S


Darvill, Keith
King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)


Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)
Kingham, Ms Tess


Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)
Kumar, Dr Ashok


Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H)
Ladyman, Dr Stephen


Dawson, Hilton
Lawrence, Ms Jackie


Dean, Mrs Janet
Laxton, Bob


Denham, John
Leslie, Christopher


Dismore, Andrew
Levitt, Tom


Dobbin, Jim
Linton, Martin


Donohoe, Brian H
Love, Andrew


Doran, Frank
McAllion, John


Dowd, Jim
McAvoy, Thomas


Drew, David
McCafferty, Ms Chris


Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth
McDonagh, Siobhain


Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)
Macdonald, Calum


Edwards, Huw
McDonnell, John


Ellman, Mrs Louise
McIsaac, Shona


Fatchett, Rt Hon Derek
McKenna, Mrs Rosemary


Field, Rt Hon Frank
Mackinlay, Andrew


Fisher, Mark
Mactaggart, Fiona


Fitzpatrick, Jim
McWalter, Tony


Fitzsimons, Lorna
Mallaber, Judy


Flint, Caroline
Mandelson, Rt Hon Peter


Flynn, Paul
Marek, Dr John


Follett, Barbara
Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)


Foster, Rt Hon Derek
Marshall, David (Shettleston)


Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)
Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)


Foster, Michael J (Worcester)
Maxton, John


Foulkes, George
Meale, Alan


Fyfe, Maria
Merron, Gillian


Galloway, George
Milburn, Rt Hon Alan


Gapes, Mike
Moonie, Dr Lewis


Gerrard, Neil
Moran, Ms Margaret


Godman, Dr Norman A
Morley, Elliot


Grocott, Bruce
Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)


Grogan, John
Mountford, Kali


Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)
Mullin, Chris


Hall, Patrick (Bedford)
Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)


Hanson, David
Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)


Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)
Naysmith, Dr Doug


Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)
O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)


Hepburn, Stephen
O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)


Heppell, John
O'Hara, Eddie


Hesford, Stephen
Olner, Bill


Hewitt, Ms Patricia
O'Neill, Martin


Hill, Keith
Organ, Mrs Diana


Hodge, Ms Margaret
Osborne, Ms Sandra


Hoey, Kate
Palmer, Dr Nick


Hoon, Geoffrey
Pearson, Ian


Hope, Phil
Perham, Ms Linda


Hopkins, Kelvin
Pickthall, Colin


Howarth, Alan (Newport E)
Pike, Peter L


Howarth, George (Knowsley N)
Plaskitt, James


Hoyle, Lindsay
Pollard, Kerry


Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)
Pond, Chris






Pope, Greg
Stevenson, George


Powell, Sir Raymond
Stewart, David (Inverness E)


Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)
Stewart, Ian (Eccles)


Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)
Stinchcombe, Paul


Primarolo, Dawn
Stoate, Dr Howard


Prosser, Gwyn
Stott, Roger


Purchase, Ken
Stringer, Graham


Rapson, Syd
Sutcliffe, Gerry


Raynsford, Nick
Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann


Reid, Rt Hon Dr John (Hamilton N)
(Dewsbury)


Roche, Mrs Barbara
Temple-Morris, Peter


Rooker, Jeff
Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)


Rooney, Terry
Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)


Rowlands, Ted
Timms, Stephen


Roy, Frank
Tipping, Paddy


Ruane, Chris
Todd, Mark


Ruddock, Joan
Touhig, Don


Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)
Trickett, Jon


Ryan, Ms Joan
Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)


Sawford, Phil
Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)


Sedgemore, Brian
Twigg, Derek (Halton)


Shaw, Jonathan
Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)


Sheerman, Barry
Vis, Dr Rudi


Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert
Walley, Ms Joan


Shipley, Ms Debra
Ward, Ms Claire


Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)
Wareing, Robert N


Singh, Marsha
Watts, David


Skinner, Dennis
White, Brian


Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)
Whitehead, Dr Alan


Smith, Angela (Basildon)
Wicks, Malcolm


Smith, Miss Geraldine
Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)


(Morecambe & Lunesdale)
Wills, Michael


Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)
Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)


Smith, John (Glamorgan)
Wood, Mike


Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)
Woolas, Phil


Snape, Peter
Worthington, Tony


Soley, Clive
Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)


Southworth, Ms Helen
Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock)


Spellar, John
Tellers for the Ayes:


Starkey, Dr Phyllis
Mrs. Anne McGuire and


Steinberg, Gerry
Mr. Robert Ainsworth.


NOES


Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)
Clappison, James


Allan, Richard
Clark, Rt Hon Alan (Kensington)


Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James
Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth


Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)
(Rushcliffe)


Baker, Norman
Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey


Bercow, John
Colvin, Michael


Beresford, Sir Paul
Cormack, Sir Patrick


Body, Sir Richard
Cran, James


Boswell, Tim
Davies, Quentin (Grantham)


Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)
Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice



& Howden)


Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia
Day, Stephen


Brooke, Rt Hon Peter
Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen


Browning, Mrs Angela
Duncan Smith, Iain


Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)
Faber, David


Bums, Simon
Fabricant, Michael


Burstow, Paul
Fearn, Ronnie


Butterfill, John
Forth, Rt Hon Eric


Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies
Fraser, Christopher


(NE Fife)
Gibb, Nick


Cash, William
Gill, Christopher


Chapman, Sir Sydney
Goodlad, Rt Hon Sir Alastair


(Chipping Barnet)
Gorman, Mrs Teresa





Gray, James
Norman, Archie


Green, Damian
Öpik, Lembit


Greenway, John
Ottaway, Richard


Grieve, Dominic
Page, Richard


Gummer, Rt Hon John
Paice, James


Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie
Paterson, Owen


Hancock, Mike
Pickles, Eric


Harris, Dr Evan
Prior, David


Hawkins, Nick
Randall, John


Hayes, John
Redwood, Rt Hon John


Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)
Rendel, David


Heathcoat—Amory, Rt Hon David
Robathan, Andrew


Howard, Rt Hon Michael
Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)


Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)
Ruffley, David


Hunter, Andrew
Russell, Bob (Colchester)


Jack, Rt Hon Michael
St Aubyn, Nick


Jenkin, Bernard
Shephard, Rt Hon Mrs Gillian


Johnson Smith,
Shepherd, Richard


Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey 
Spelman, Mrs Caroline


Kennedy, Charles (Ross Skye)
Spring, Richard


Key, Robert
Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John


Kirkbride, Miss Julie
Steen, Anthony


Laing, Mrs Eleanor
Streeter, Gary


Lait, Mrs Jacqui
Syms, Robert


Lansley, Andrew
Tapsell, Sir Peter


Leigh, Edward
Taylor, Ian (Esher & Walton)


Lidington, David
Taylor, John M (Solihull)


Lilley, Rt Hon Peter
Taylor, Sir Teddy


Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)
Tonge, Dr Jenny


Loughton, Tim
Tredinnick, David


Luff, Peter
Trend, Michael


McIntosh, Miss Anne
Tyrie, Andrew


MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew
Wardle, Charles


Maclean, Rt Hon David
Waterson, Nigel


McLoughlin, Patrick
Wells, Bowen


Madel, Sir David
Whittingdale, John


Malins, Humfrey
Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann


Maples, John
Wilkinson, John


Maude, Rt Hon Francis
Wilshire, David


Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian
Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)


May, Mrs Theresa
Tellers for the Noes:


Moss, Malcolm
Mr. Oliver Heald and


Nicholls, Patrick
Mr. Tim Collins.

Question accordingly agreed to.

MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House commends the Government for taking a far-sighted and more integrated approach to roads policy than the previous administration; notes that the previous Government's `predict and provide' approach to road building has been discredited and that the present Government has instead taken a realistic and practical approach based on the five criteria of integration, the economy, the environment, safety and accessibility; notes further that the previous Conservative Government's grandiose but impractical wish-list of schemes for which funding was not available has been replaced by a targeted programme of improvements, all of which can be started within seven years; welcomes its increased and more rationally-based spending on roads maintenance; and applauds the Government for tackling the problems of congestion and pollution, thereby ensuring that the road transport system operates for the benefit of individual people and the UK economy as a whole.

It being after Seven o'clock, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER proceeded to put forthwith the Questions relating to Estimates which he was directed to put at that hour, pursuant to Standing Order No. 55 (Questions on voting of estimates, &c.) and the Order [16 December].

ESTIMATES, 1999–2000 (NAVY) VOTE A

Resolved,
That during the year ending on 31st March 2000 a number not exceeding 48,340 all ranks be maintained for Naval Service, a number not exceeding 18,330 for Service in the Reserve Naval and Marine Forces, and a number not exceeding 200 for Service as Special Members of the Reserve Naval Forces under Part V of the Reserve Forces Act 1996.

ESTIMATES, 1999–2000 (ARMY) VOTE A

Resolved,
That during the year ending on 31st March 2000 a number not exceeding 135,420 all ranks be maintained for Army Service, a number not exceeding 76,700 for Service in the Reserve Land Forces, and a number not exceeding 6,000 for Service as Special Members of the Reserve Land Forces under Part V of the Reserve Forces Act 1996.

ESTIMATES, 1999–2000 (AIR) VOTE A

Resolved,
That during the year ending on 31st March 2000 a number not exceeding 58,070 all ranks be maintained for the Air Force Service, a number not exceeding 26,000 for Service in the Reserve Air Forces, and a number not exceeding 430 for Service as Special Members of the Reserve Air Forces under Part V of the Reserve Forces Act 1996.

ESTIMATES, EXCESSES, 1997–98

Resolved,
That a sum not exceeding £2,000 be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to make good excesses of certain grants for Defence and Civil Services for the year ended on 31st March 1998, as set out in HC 239.

SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, 1998–99

Resolved,
That a further supplementary sum not exceeding £2,946,254,000 be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to complete or defray the charges for Defence and Civil Services for the year ending on 31st March 1999, as set out in HC 237, 238 and 310.

Ordered,
That a Bill be brought in upon the foregoing Resolutions relating to Estimates, Excesses, 1997–98, and Supplementary Estimates, 1998–99: And that the Chairman of Ways and Means, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Alan Milburn, Dawn Primarolo, Ms Patricia Hewitt and Mrs. Barbara Roche do prepare and bring it in.

CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 2) BILL

Mrs. Barbara Roche accordingly presented a Bill to apply certain funds out of the Consolidated Fund to the service of the years ending on 31 March 1998 and 1999: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed [Bill 66].

Arts Funding (Westminster)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Hill.]

Ms Karen Buck: London is home to a flourishing and diverse artistic community. We are truly fortunate in that we host centres of excellence in the performing and fine arts that draw on a magnificent heritage going back for centuries. However, the arts are not only a heritage from the past. We also have a thriving modern cultural sector that reaches into new mediums of delivery and celebrates our dynamic multicultural present.
Culture and the arts are not an optional add-on for a society that has resources to spare. They give expression to our humanity, enrich our lives, stimulate the imaginations of our children and act as a barometer of our self-esteem. We should be proud of what we do to promote the arts in our society and cautious of those who see the arts as a frivolity or as one more consumer good to be left to the market to deliver.
Fifteen months ago, I was delighted to attend a celebration of the arts in Westminster at the London Palladium, set up by Westminster city council. Westminster's gala nights for the arts were grounds for pride on the part of the council. They showcased the enthusiasm and talent among our schoolchildren and youth in music, dance, drama and the carnival arts. They demonstrated the dynamic that exists when the artistic traditions of China, Bangladesh, the Caribbean and the many countries whence our asylum seekers come meet modern Britain's world of classical, rap and rock music.
My purpose in seeking this debate tonight is to give expression to the profound disappointment I now feel at Westminster city council's decision to slash funding for the arts and community groups in central London. That disappointment is all the more acute because it contrasts with the positive support and statements of support given by the borough up to and including its recent gala nights for the arts.
Only a few months ago, Councillor Harvey Marshall, chair of the arts committee, said:
Westminster is certainly the capital and it must be the heart of the arts in London and the country. We shall continue to support the arts at all levels, for the benefit of residents, businesses and visitors.
At the beginning of last month, the council cut its funding to all but one of the 24 arts organisations that it had supported. Cuts ranged from 6 per cent. to the complete loss of grant. Decisions came out of the blue for many groups, and they were taken in a thoughtless, blustering manner that made a mockery of the pious words of Councillor Marshall just weeks earlier.
Out went the grants to the orchestra of St. John's, Smith square. Out went the grant to the Photographers Gallery. The Yaa Asentewa centre lost four fifths of its grant, and it is struggling for its life. That organisation may need to make changes in the services that it delivers, but I must wonder about the message being sent to black Londoners by the loss of support for the only Londonwide black arts centre.

Mr. Andrew Dismore: My hon. Friend will recall that I was a Westminster councillor in my previous


life. For 10 years, I was opposition spokesperson on the arts committee, where, on what was otherwise a highly politically polarised council, we were able to achieve a great deal of consensus because of the chairmanship of the then Councillor Roger Bramble, a great supporter of Yaa Asentewa and some of the more avant-garde arts. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is particularly demeaning that, now that Roger Bramble has moved on, Westminster is taking a much more right-wing approach towards the arts? The situation at Yaa Asentewa illustrates the way in which Westminster is targeting arts that support the ethnic minorities. In addition, the council is targeting the avant-garde arts organisations—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): Order. I am afraid that I must interrupt the hon. Gentleman.

Ms Buck: I am grateful to my hon. Friend who is completely right.
I need not explain to the Minister the importance of carnival in my constituency. The Yaa Asentewa is among the centres at which carnival arts are nurtured and promoted. They are of great significance, particularly to Afro-Caribbean residents.
The most recent edition of the bulletin, "The Arts in Westminster", advertises the fact that the Yaa Asentewa has been funded by the local single regeneration budget to run a holiday play scheme and an after-school club involving drama and music skills as well as basic skills tuition in literacy and numeracy.
Cuts have also fallen on the Serpentine gallery, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the English National Opera and Ballet, Paddington Arts, Wigmore hall, Photo Works Westminster, the Soho Theatre Company, London Print Workshop, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Westminster Youth Dance Scene, Alternative Arts—which was singled out for praise by Councillor Marshall just weeks earlier—and more.
In all, £360,000 has been cut from arts organisations. That has been partially offset by some small additional funding, but 15 per cent. of the arts budget—£230,000—has been lost to the arts in the borough. I should like to deal briefly with the borough's arguments in justification of that action.
Westminster claims that the Government have cut support to the borough. Yet the December policy and resources budget paper admitted that the grant settlement meant that
the position for next year is better than expected".
Since then, the council has received additional money for education and several other additional special grants. As standard spending assessments have been agreed for a three-year cycle, there is no justification for panic spending cuts.
Westminster has long been, and remains, one of those authorities that raise the smallest proportion of spending from the council tax. Only £1 in every £10 spent by the council comes from the council tax payer—a proportion virtually unchanged since 1995. As a percentage of budget, Westminster's council tax requirement was the fourth lowest in the country in 1997, and the fifth lowest last year. Those figures give the lie to claims that the

Government have been excessively punitive towards Westminster and that council tax payers bear too much of the spending burden.
I cannot fail to mention the fact that Westminster is sitting on reserves of £84 million.
The council also ignores the fact that Westminster, which has the highest concentration of arts organisations in the country, benefits from inward investment because of its support for the arts. Westminster's local economy benefits from tourism and visitors, half of whom cite the arts as a reason for their visit. The London Arts Board invests £2 million in arts provision in Westminster, and the city is also a major recipient of lottery arts funding. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will respond to that point in his reply, as it will help to disabuse us of the notion that local council tax payers are subsidising national organisations from which they receive no benefit.
The other important counter-argument to the charges laid by Westminster lie in our schools. Many of the institutions savaged by grant cuts have an excellent record of work with school children. Wigmore hall states:
The £8,000 cut in funding restricts the Hall's ability to fund an education officer … our schools projects complement the national curriculum and to date they are offered almost exclusively to schools within Westminster. As the city does not have a Music Co-ordinator, the Hall arranged for teachers to meet regularly to share ideas and good teaching practice … the relationship developed and Wigmore Hall raised funds to employ an administrator to arrange inter-school activities and a pool of musical instruments.
The Institute of Contemporary Arts has listed educational initiatives that will have to be scaled down, including a consultancy scheme on the deeply and multiply deprived Mozart estate, developing teaching and learning materials with teachers and community groups and organising evening taster sessions for residents. The Photographers Gallery drew attention to recent community projects that involved working with the Marylebone Bangladeshi society, Soho parish school, deaf artists from the area and others. The Serpentine gallery warns that a 48 per cent. cut will
have a serious impact on the Gallery's education programme and the service it can offer to residents … half the children who attend the Saturday Art Club are Westminster children and they have priority … these activities and policies are now in jeopardy.
In conclusion, I should like to raise three points. First, Westminster is wrong to make damaging, philistine and financially devastating cuts to arts and community organisations. Secondly, it is repugnant to attempt to pin the blame on the cost of asylum seekers to the local community.

Mr. Peter Brooke: I know the subject to which the hon. Lady is turning. Does she agree that that was a coda to the central problem, which is that the Government had decided to take millions out of Westminster's budget in respect of people who come in for the day as visitors? The figures for several of the institutions that she has mentioned show that, to a great extent, they service people from outside Westminster, rather than purely Westminster people.

Ms Buck: I have attempted to make it clear that the funding Westminster gives to community organisations is directed to the benefit of local residents and school


children, and funds projects involving work with local schools and community groups, so it is not right to make the allegation that the right hon. Gentleman makes.
As for the right hon. Gentleman's point about cuts in funding to the borough in previous years, he is absolutely correct to say that a change was made to the spending formula in 1997. Westminster objected to that; the council sought and was not refused leave to have a judicial review of that decision. However, that decision was taken in 1997, and the local elections were fought in 1998, after the decision had already been incorporated into the Budget. The manifesto did not say a word about the fact that the council would seek another round of cuts—indeed, the council prided itself on the fact that, thanks to its good housekeeping, it was able to sustain front-line services and maintain a low council tax. However, immediately after the local elections, an axe was taken to community, voluntary and arts organisations.
To return to the point about asylum seekers, I want to express my anger about the fact that some extremely vulnerable people who have arrived in this country are being blamed for the crisis in arts funding. Although in recent years many London councils have borne too large a part of the financial burden for a matter that should be dealt with at national level, Westminster council knows full well that the new Government are taking several measures to assist central London boroughs, including Westminster, with the cost of asylum seekers. Those measures include an additional £130 million grant to help London boroughs, which was announced before Christmas. The combination of proposals to assist other communities to take a fair share of asylum seekers and the additional money means that it is completely wrong to attempt to pin the blame on asylum seekers. I believe that was a cynical and provocative playing of the race card for which there is no excuse.
The arts and community groups deserve nothing but praise for the work that they do, and have done, in Westminster and for the campaign of persuasion that they have run in recent months in an attempt to influence the council to change its decision. The London Arts Board and the National Campaign for the Arts should also be commended for their vigorous support at this difficult time. The arts will survive in Westminster because our communities and our institutions are strong, but much damage has been done to both morale and vital services.
I know that the Minister cannot write me a cheque—although, if he did, I would certainly not tear it up. However, I would be grateful for a sign that he and the Government recognise the value of the arts in the deprived, multicultural Westminster community and that he shares my regret about the damage being done to arts institutions.

The Minister for the Arts (Mr. Alan Howarth): As is her way, my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) has done a service to Londoners and to us all by securing this debate. I am grateful to her for raising the issue of funding for the arts in Westminster, and for speaking with such vigour and strength of feeling.
I want to place the problems with which the arts have been confronted in Westminster in the context of this Government's policy for the arts. To us, it is a central and

welcome responsibility of Government to support the arts. The arts are integral to the quality of our lives, private and public. For the experience of the arts to be accessible to all people, there is an inescapable obligation on Government to act to bring that about. It is a responsibility that falls on both central and local government.
We have been willing to find the money that the arts need. The settlement we achieved in the comprehensive spending review will put an extra £125 million into the arts over the next three years—the largest increase for a generation at least, and is in stark contrast to the recent history of arts funding in this country. In announcing my Department's funding plans for the next three years, we intend that the Arts Council and the bodies it funds should have greater certainty over the coming period and an unprecedented opportunity to plan strategically.
Beyond money, we are working to create an environment in which the arts can thrive and satisfy audiences across the country. We want access, as I have said, to ensure that the arts are for the many, not the few. We want excellence, because we believe in it for its own sake. We want education, so that people's enjoyment of the arts is enhanced and because that is our investment in the long-term future of the arts and in the quality of life of our society. We want a healthy arts economy, because it underwrites the rest of our objectives and provides jobs. In the United Kingdom, the creative industries have been growing at about twice the rate of the economy as a whole. They already employ more than 1.4 million people—5 per cent. of the total employed work force.
All those principles will be enshrined in the funding agreement we are currently preparing with the Arts Council. We are investing on the condition that the recipients of public investment—our partners—share our commitment to excellence and innovation, access for all, education and the creative economy. We believe that the administration of funding for the arts should be cost effective. Accordingly, the Arts Council is restructuring to deliver a better service to arts practitioners. It will be a leaner, more effective organisation. Many of its current responsibilities will be delegated in future to the regional arts boards, bringing funding decisions closer to the people most affected.
I am happy to be able to tell the House that, in the coming year, the Arts Council and the London Arts Board between them will invest £36 million in Westminster. Like my hon. Friend, however, I am very unhappy about the view that Westminster has taken of its own responsibilities in the coming year.
Our system of public support for the arts will work as it should only if everyone plays a part. Responsibility must be shared between the Arts Council—in distributing grant-in-aid and lottery funds—the regional arts boards, local authorities and other funders, such as business sponsors and the European Union. One partner cannot retreat in the expectation that others will pick up the tab. Our artistic ecology is fragile. The confluence of funding streams that keeps many precious artistic enterprises afloat is finely balanced: damming just one tributary can be enough to leave them high and dry.
My hon. Friend will understand that, as Minister for the Arts, I cannot and do not wish to determine local priorities in Westminster or any other authority. If the arm's length principle applies to the way in which the Arts Council and regional arts boards distribute grant-in-aid, it must


also apply to local government spending on the arts. The accountability of Westminster city council is to its electors. If the people of Westminster do not believe that their council is getting its priorities right, they can seek to persuade their locally elected representatives to take a different course of action. They can also express their dissatisfaction through the ballot box.
It has already become clear that cutting funding to arts organisations is not a soft option for a local authority. When damage is gratuitously inflicted on the cultural life of an area, there is a public outcry, both from the artistic community and from local people. So it has been in the case raised by my hon. Friend. Her voice and mine are but additions to the many who have criticised the actions of Westminster city council.
Trevor Phillips, chair of the London Arts Board, has written eloquently in the Evening Standard of Westminster's lamentable decision, of the joyless, miserable and depressing vision of the chairman of Westminster city council's arts committee, Councillor Harvey Marshall, and of the ugly whiff of bigotry that he detects. Peter Hewitt, chief executive of the Arts Council, has said that he is deeply disappointed by Westminster's actions. The Evening Standard itself, in an editorial, has described Westminster's decision to cut arts funding as one that smacks of Philistinism and narrow-mindedness, and has deplored the damage that Westminster will do to the education of its children.
I can only agree. Westminster's cuts to arts funding will do damage to arts organisations of high reputation. To name but a few of the hardest hit, we are talking about, as my hon. Friend told us, the orchestra of St. John's Smith Square, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Photographers' gallery and the Institute of Contemporary Arts. Another is the Serpentine gallery. Westminster's grant to the gallery is spent on education, but it will now be reduced from £58,000 to £28,000. Last year, more than 500 teachers, mostly from Westminster, attended workshops run by the gallery. The gallery runs regular events for three local primary schools. Disabled people attended 12 similar events. The reduction in funding can have only the most serious implications for all those activities.
That is happening in the heart of our capital city, which is one of the world's great capitals of the arts, attracting artists and performers from within and beyond our shores. London's audiences create the opportunities for London's performers; they treasure and insist upon the public support that is indispensable to the vitality and quality of the arts in London.
The particular organisations that I have mentioned will have to bear reductions of between 47 and 100 per cent. in their local authority funding. For smaller organisations, cuts of that order can have a devastating, if not terminal, effect. For their larger colleagues, they are still deeply undermining. Twenty-three arts organisations in Westminster are to suffer. Those that will bear lesser cuts to their funding will still be damaged.
As in the case of the Serpentine gallery, to which I have already referred, so too with Wigmore hall—my hon. Friend described the damage to its educational programme—the Institute of Contemporary Arts, the Photographers' gallery and other organisations,

where Westminster's dereliction will hit the activities that put most back into the community, such as arts education. Dr. Nicholas Tate, the chief executive of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority has said:
It has become very clear to us how powerful is the contribution of the arts to a whole range of skills and attitudes that are vital to learning right across the curriculum, and indeed to employability.
Westminster's schools face many difficulties and challenges. The arts offer to schoolchildren, not just the high fliers but those who are disaffected and see too little prospect for themselves in formal education, a kindling of the imagination and opportunities for personal development, which we should grasp and not reject. It is not some social elite that suffers when the arts are cut, but people—adults and children—who might otherwise have little or no opportunity to experience what the arts have to offer.
The harm done to individual organisations aggregates into a bleaker picture overall. A community in which those in authority care about its culture, reflecting the values of the people whom they represent, has depth and substance. It has pride and it presents itself proudly to the world. The damage that the authority may do to itself through a cut of £360,000 in investment in arts organisations in the city of Westminster, through discouraging tourists, investors and employers, not to mention the detrimental impact on education, is incalculable.
When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State negotiated the substantial increase in arts funding during the comprehensive spending review, he did not do so with the intention of filling, in retrospect, the gaps left by local authorities. When we see the Arts Council offering the Serpentine gallery an increased grant of £80,000 in the coming year, while Westminster city council withdraws £58,000; when we see the London Arts Board upping funding to the Unicorn children's theatre by £8,000, while Westminster withdraws £17,000; when we see the way in which funds channelled through my Department are negated by cuts by Westminster, we feel a sense of betrayal.
We all know that when a local authority sets its budget, some hard choices are inevitable. There are many competing demands for funding, of course. From time to time, funders of arts budgets need to alter patterns of support—perhaps because the management or the artistic output of an organisation is not what it needs to be. But, as my hon. Friends the Members for Regent's Park and Kensington, North and for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) have made clear, there is no persuasive rationale for what is planned by Westminster. It intends to cut the funding of the organisations I have listed by nearly 30 per cent. for no decent reason.
The chairman of Westminster's arts committee, Councillor Harvey Marshall, has stated that one reason for the cuts is a reduction in central Government support for the council. The right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke) also made that point. I will give the House the facts. The standard spending assessment for Westminster city council—the pot from which arts funding is drawn—has risen by 5.2 per cent. compared with 1998–99. That compares with an average increase for inner London of 4.2 per cent. Overall, the total external support for Westminster will rise from £187.72 million to £192.74 million in the coming year.
I turn to the most extremely offensive aspect of what Westminster has done. As my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North told us, Councill or Marshall has stated his view that cuts in the arts are necessary to pay for asylum seekers in the borough. Again, I will set out the facts. Westminster has by no means the largest task among the London boroughs in dealing with the number of asylum seekers needing support. Moreover, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has already responded to pleas from local authorities for more assistance, making an extra £30 million available to support new arrangements for asylum seekers, focusing on London and Dover in particular. Local authorities will be able to recover from Government the costs which fall to them of accommodating and supporting asylum seekers. Those steps have been welcomed by both the Association of London Government and the Local Government Association.
Councillor Harvey Marshall proposes an equation—more asylum seekers equals less art for Londoners—which should shame the local authority whose arts committee he chairs. The politics of making scapegoats is

ugly, nasty and unacceptable. My hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North expressed her anger about that. The right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster offered a plea in mitigation, but it will not suffice. He is a thoroughly decent man, and must be as ashamed as any of us of what his Conservative colleagues have said and done.
It is a relief at least to be able to say that Westminster's attitude towards the arts and its policy are an aberration. They are exceptional. Although there are certainly other authorities where we would welcome stronger support for the arts, and for museums as well, I pay tribute to the many local authorities whose commitment to the arts is unhesitating and strong, and who are actively developing their cultural strategies. Just as joined-up Government is necessary in Whitehall, so it is necessary between central and local government in terms of the arts as in other sectors. I value our partnership at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport with the Local Government Association and with other individual local authorities and look forward to developing it further.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at five minutes to Eight o'clock.